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Bush's Claims About Iraq's Nuclear Program
Vice President Dick Cheney stated three days before U.S.-led coalition
forces invaded Iraq this past March that Iraq “has reconstituted
nuclear weapons.” At the time, however, intelligence and other
U.S. officials already disagreed about the evidence behind his statement,
and events over the last few months have deepened doubts among the
general public and members of Congress.
The international community discovered after Iraq’s defeat
in the 1991 Persian Gulf War that Iraq had a much more advanced
nuclear weapons program than either the United States or the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had suspected. The IAEA was charged
with undertaking inspections to ensure that Iraq complied with disarmament
requirements mandated by UN Security Council Resolution 687, but
the United Nations withdrew the inspectors in December 1998 after
Iraq stopped cooperating with them. The agency, however, reported
in 1999 that, based on the inspectors’ work until that time,
there was “no indication that Iraq possesses nuclear weapons
or any meaningful amounts of weapon-usable nuclear material, or
that Iraq has retained any practical capability (facilities or hardware)
for the production of such material.”
The IAEA also cautioned that this statement was “not the same
as a statement of [the weapons] ‘non-existence.’”
A 2001 Department of Defense report added that Iraq “still
retains sufficient skilled and experienced scientists and engineers
as well as weapons design information that could allow it to restart
a weapons program.”
The absence of inspectors, combined with the remaining uncertainty
regarding Iraq’s nuclear program, created concern that Iraq
was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. The Security Council
adopted Resolution 1441 in November 2002, requiring Iraq to comply
fully with its disarmament requirements under relevant Security
Council resolutions. Inspections resumed later that month. IAEA
Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei reported to the Security Council
March 7 that the inspectors had “found no evidence or plausible
indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq.”
The administration’s contention that Iraq had a nuclear weapons
program has several components. President George W. Bush cited three
pieces of evidence in an October 7, 2002, speech that “Iraq
is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program”: meetings between
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Iraqi nuclear weapons scientists,
Iraq’s reconstruction of buildings at sites where its nuclear
weapons facilities had previously been located, and Iraq’s
attempts to obtain components for gas centrifuges that can be used
to enrich uranium for use as fissile material in nuclear weapons.
The State Department issued a fact sheet December 19 asserting that
Iraq had attempted to obtain uranium from Niger. Bush and other
administration officials repeated the claim several times after
that.
On February 5, Secretary of State Colin Powell gave a presentation
about U.S. intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to
the Security Council. His presentation only mentioned efforts to
acquire centrifuge components and Hussein’s meetings with Iraqi
nuclear scientists.
An October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) cites all of
these factors in its judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear
weapons program. The NIE states that “most agencies” agreed
but includes an alternative view from the State Department’s
Bureau for Intelligence and Research (INR) stating that “available
evidence indicates that Baghdad is pursuing at least a limited effort
to maintain and acquire nuclear weapon-related capabilities”
but that the evidence is “inadequate” to support the claim
that “Iraq is currently pursuing…an integrated and comprehensive
approach to acquire nuclear weapons.”
The following chart looks at the administration’s public claims
about Iraq’s suspected nuclear weapons program.
NUCLEAR CLAIMS
| Bush Administration Claim |
The Bush administration claimed that Iraq was attempting
to acquire uranium from Niger.
Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium were considered an important
step in its suspected nuclear weapons program because Baghdad’s
lack of fissile material was one of the most serious constraints
on its ability to produce nuclear weapons. Even if Iraq had
acquired lightly processed uranium ore from Africa, however,
it would still have needed to enrich it to obtain weapons-grade
uranium.
Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet said in an
August 11 statement that claims regarding uranium importation
were not central to the National Intelligence Estimate’s
judgments about Iraq’s nuclear program because “Iraq
already had significant quantities of uranium.” Iraq
had more than two tons of low-enriched uranium under International
Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.
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| The Controversy |
Intelligence officials expressed reservations about this
claim several times. Tenet told National Security Council
staff and White House speechwriters not to include a line
about Iraq’s attempts to import uranium from Africa in
a speech Bush gave October 7, Deputy National Security Adviser
Stephen Hadley said July 22. Additionally, Tenet said July
11 that the CIA expressed “reservations” about the
claim to British intelligence in September 2002, and INR characterized
claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa as “highly
dubious,” according to the October NIE.
The CIA sent former Ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger in
February 2002 to investigate reports about Iraq’s attempts
to acquire uranium. Wilson wrote in The New York Times
July 6 that “it was highly doubtful that any such transaction
had taken place” because Niger’s uranium industry
is closely regulated by its government and is controlled by
a consortium of foreign companies monitored by the IAEA.
Tenet said July 11 that Wilson also reported to the CIA that
a former Nigerien official described a businessman’s
attempt to arrange a meeting between the former official and
an Iraqi delegation as “an attempt to discuss uranium
sales,” but Wilson told Arms Control Today August 18
that the official mentioned uranium as an afterthought.
ElBaradei told the UN Security Council in March that U.S.-supplied
documents ostensibly supporting this claim were forged.
Nigerien Prime Minister Hama Amadou denied in an interview
with the London Sunday Telegraph that Niger ever discussed
uranium with Iraq, according to a July 27 article.
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| Bush Administration Claim |
The October NIE claimed that Iraq was attempting
to obtain aluminum tubes and magnets for use in a gas centrifuge-based
uranium-enrichment program. |
| The Controversy |
Aluminum Tubes
An IAEA investigation concluded that “[t]here is no
indication that Iraq has attempted to import aluminum tubes
for use in centrifuge enrichment. Moreover, even had Iraq
pursued such a plan, it would have encountered practical difficulties
in manufacturing centrifuges out of the aluminum tubes in
question,” ElBaradei told the Security Council March
7. He added that “field investigation and document analysis
have failed to uncover any evidence that Iraq intended to
use these…tubes for any project other than the reverse
engineering of rockets.” According to the October NIE,
both INR and Department of Energy (DOE) centrifuge experts
concluded that the tubes were most likely for rockets, although
three other intelligence agencies concluded they were for
use in centrifuges.
Tenet said August 11 that U.S. military intelligence experts
concluded that the tubes were “poor choices for rocket
motor bodies,” but Greg Thielmann, former director of
INR’s Strategic, Proliferation, and Military Affairs
Office, argued in a July 9 press conference that the DOE experts
were the most knowledgeable about the subject.
Magnets
ElBaradei told the Security Council March 7 that there was
“no indication to date that Iraq imported magnets for
use in a centrifuge enrichment programme.”
Administration officials have also cited an Iraqi scientist’s
June 2003 handover of blueprints and components for gas centrifuges
that he had hidden on his property as evidence that Iraq had
a centrifuge program. The scientist, however, had hidden those
components since 1991 and IAEA Iraq Action Team Leader Jacques
Baute said the component set is incomplete and the documents
appear to contain errors, according to a July 15 Associated
Press article.
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| Bush Administration Claim |
The administration claimed that Hussein was meeting
with top nuclear weapons experts and that Iraq maintained the
scientific know-how to produce nuclear weapons. |
| The Controversy |
Thielmann said that “there was no solid evidence
that indicated Iraq’s top nuclear scientists were rejuvenating
Iraq’s nuclear weapons program,” according to a June
20 Associated Press article. IAEA spokesperson Melissa Fleming
added that Iraqi nuclear personnel were “aging…[and]
weren’t working collectively.” |
| Bush Administration Claim |
Bush said October 7 that Iraq was reconstructing
buildings at sites where its nuclear weapons facilities had
previously been located. |
| The Controversy |
ElBaradei reported March 7 that “[t]here
is no indication of resumed nuclear activities in those buildings
that were identified through the use of satellite imagery as
being reconstructed or newly erected since 1998, nor any indication
of nuclear-related prohibited activities at any inspected sites.” |
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