Word: tammuz
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Kirkpatrick's hesitancy in the Security Council reflected the ambivalent approach of the Reagan Administration toward the problem of censuring Israel for the bombing raid on Iraq's Tammuz nuclear reactor. Eloquently recalling the "strength of U.S. ties and commitment to Israel and the warmth of our feelings," Kirkpatrick admitted that the draft was "not a perfect resolution." But she added that Washington had been "shocked" by the Israelis' launching a raid before peaceful approaches had been exhausted. Replied Israeli Ambassador Yehuda Blum: "Israel unreservedly rejects the biased and one-sided resolution just adopted by the council...
American officials were not alone last week in expressing doubts that Iraq could have produced materials for nuclear weapons within months of activating the 70-MW Tammuz reactor. That crucial Israeli contention did get some support, but also a lot more detailed criticism, from an impressive array of international nuclear scientists and Western government officials...
...nuclear chicanery was disputed in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by Roger Richter, an American married to an Israeli, who resigned last week as an inspector for the international agency. Richter, who had been assigned to cover the area including Iraq but had never personally inspected the Tammuz reactor, said that the Iraqis could have concealed bombmaking efforts during IAEA inspection visits. Richter also said he believed the Iraqis wanted to make bombs within five years...
...were not hit, nor was an Italian-built "hot cell" lab, where Iraqi technicians could learn the techniques of handling radioactive materials, including theoretically, how to separate tiny amounts of plutonium from spent uranium fuel. Because plutonium can be used to make nuclear weapons its possible production at the Tammuz site was central to the Israelis justification for the raid. The Iraqi-French contract required delivery of 70 kg of 93% enriched U-235 a grade and amount of uranium well suited for making nuclear weapons. In addition the 70-MW Tammuz reactor was 14 times as powerful as most...
...French, however, insist that any diversion of enriched uranium by the Iraqis for bombmaking, or conversion of the reactor for plutonium production would immediately have been spotted by the 150 French technical advisors at Tammuz or by International Atomic Energy Agency inspector charged with enforcing the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, which Iraq signed in 1968. France had taken steps to minimize the possibility that nuclear fuel might be diverted for military purposes. Paris had promised, for example, to deliver only enough enriched uranium in a shipment to keep the reactor going, thus preventing the Iraqis from stockpiling the material. Last June...