Those who would measure the timetable for Saddam's atomic programme in years may be seriously underestimating the situation and the gravity of the threat.

George Bush, November 1990

He tried [12 years ago] to develop a programme - an upgraded Oak Ridge [enrichment] facility in Iraq. Of course he couldn't. It is too complex for Iraqi science or technology.

Khidhir Hamza, June 2002

There may be good reasons for going to war with Iraq but Iraq's nuclear programme isn't one of them.

US Government official, 1990

So here we go again. In October 1991, following the Gulf War, early inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) under Security Council Resolution 687 revealed that Iraq had a clandestine uranium enrichment programme based on the novel method of electromagnetic separation. This did not involve equipment normally used in nuclear power programmes and so had evaded detection. There were two sites involved in the process, Tuwaitha and Tarmiyah, but only about a kilo of uranium had been enriched by just a few per cent. At the time I estimated that it would take four or five years for Iraq to enrich sufficient uranium for a weapon.[*] This timescale is confirmed in the report just published by the International Institute of Strategic Studies.

LRB 17 October 2002 | PDF Download