Word: reactor
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Suppose a small nation with limited technological skills wants to build an atomic bomb. Could it succeed? Yes, most nuclear experts think the answer is yes, especially if the country already possesses a nuclear reactor and the know-how to run it. One of the unhappy facts of the nuclear age is that the same reactors used in peaceful nuclear research and in the production of electricity can also serve as the starting points for fabricating A-bombs...
Building its own reactor would be extremely difficult for a Third World country. But buying one would not be much of a problem, particularly for a nation like Iraq, flush with petrodollars. At least 15 countries* are now offering nuclear technology on the international market. Their wares include not only a variety of reactors and fuels, along with the necessary technicians, but also reprocessing machinery that could be used for recovering the lethal ingredients for bombmaking from the spent reactor materials. A tidy set of such equipment that would be suitable for conversion to weapon construction would cost upwards...
...nonproliferation treaty, only to decide that it wanted a nuclear weapon after all, would have to conceal its operations from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a Vienna-based affiliate of the U.N. The agency's inspectors are often on hand when nuclear fuel is loaded into a reactor. They install sealed closed-circuit TV cameras for continuous on-site monitoring, and they return periodically to check this equipment. Still, the IAEA's inspectors do not always get to see what they would like in member countries. For a time during the Iraq-Iran fighting, for example, Baghdad...
...nuclear reactor, such a chain reaction is kept under control by "absorbers"-usually boron or cadmium rods. These capture neutrons that might otherwise split more atoms. But if the fissile material is pure enough, and sufficiently compressed, as in a bomb, the chain reaction speeds up. Heat accumulates, and the material blows apart to produce the nuclear age's familiar mushroom cloud...
...would be to buy enriched uranium from a nuclear nation as part of a deal for a reactor designed to burn such weapons-grade fuel. The reactor Iraq acquired from France would have used 93% enriched U-235. During the course of operation, some of this material might be skimmed off for nuclear weaponry, although that would be a risky proposition. The IAEA inspectors might spot the diversion, or some of the foreign technicians at the site might blow the whistle on the schemers...