Iraq

This chapter examines Iraq’s strategy for buying the vital components of a nuclear fuel cycle that would have given Baghdad access to plutonium. It considers Israeli fears that Iraq was hell-bent on producing nuclear weapons. The agreement for Osiraq and its controversial fuel rightly attracted the most attention abroad, but it distracted attention from Iraq’s equally controversial bid to create a plutonium cycle by purchasing uranium ore, fuel-fabrication and reprocessing facilities. International concern about Iraq’s nuclear investment was fended off by Baghdad’s referring to its treaty obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards that would prevent the misuse of imported technology. Doubts about Iraq’s nuclear motives led to a series of incidents of sabotage and murder aimed at slowing down the country’s nuclear programme. The Iraqi President addressed himself to the nuclear issue in August 1980, two months after Meshad was murdered in Paris.