Word: uranium
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...country of 18 million, made the defense industry far and away Iraq's largest employer. One nuclear complex in Thaji, north of Baghdad, comprised 1,000 buildings and covered an area the size of the District of Columbia. U.S. officials also disclosed more specifics about Iraq's uranium-enrichment programs, the linchpin of Baghdad's efforts to develop an atom bomb. In addition to the three methods for separating uranium isotopes -- gas centrifuge, calutron and gaseous diffusion -- already identified by Washington, Iraq relied on a chemical technique and a jet-nozzle process used in South Africa. New intelligence information...
...Saddam's scientists also tried a chemical-separation process and the calutrons. The U.S. had employed calutrons to enrich uranium used in the Hiroshima bomb, but then abandoned the technology because it is very expensive and produces enriched uranium only slowly and in small quantities. For Saddam, however, calutrons had advantages. The technology had been declassified and was discussed freely in scientific journals. The imported components had legitimate industrial uses and did not raise eyebrows in the West; better yet, Iraqi industry could produce most of the necessary components itself. Calutrons gulp enormous amounts of electricity, and the power lines...
...threatened to bomb suspected weapons-manufacturing installations, Iraqi officials admitted that they are much closer to joining the nuclear club than was previously known. In a 29-page report to the U.N. and the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iraq revealed that it had more than 4 lbs. of enriched uranium, developed from three clandestine nuclear programs. The report, a masterpiece of submission and arrogance, made no attempt to justify the illegal program: "Iraq had sound reasons of national security which induced it not to declare certain components of the program...
...latest evidence has left American and British officials uncertain about the exact size of Iraq's weapons-grade uranium stockpile. In theory, had Saddam's physicists proceeded unimpeded from 1985 to 1995, Iraq might have been able to amass anywhere from 200 lbs. to 1,100 lbs. of bomb-ready fuel, experts say. At present, the amount of fissionable uranium is probably still very small. "I'd be skeptical of claims that he's close to a bomb," said an Administration official. "People who come out with bold statements about how much material he has just don't know what...
...numbers of bombers in the region to strike at nuclear facilities. Pentagon officials carefully leaked word last week that they were examining as many as "100 targets" inside Iraq for future air strikes. But that kind of talk only illustrates Bush's problem. The alleged 4 lbs. of enriched uranium occupies a space about the size of a golf ball. The 30 to 38 electromagnetic separators can be shuttled on flatbed trucks, just like the elusive Scud missiles. Intelligence reports last week revealed that Saddam's troops were burying equipment in the sand. Any attack now would only be partially...