Abstract

Iraqi nuclear programs were launched as early as the 1980’s. The Iraqis were at that stage seeking to master the technique of producing plutonium in laboratories. After the destruction of Osirak, they explored other possibilities for producing highly-enriched uranium. From 1991 onwards, the international community began to take the full measure of the Iraqi electromagnetic and centrifugal programs, as well as of the tests undertaken in the field of “weaponization”; but it came up against an effective system of dissimulation. In 1995, the defection of Hussein Kamel brought about greater cooperation with the United Nations inspectors, whose mission was interrupted in 1998. In 2002, the inspections were resumed, to lead to the discovery that Iraqis had made practically no progress in the field of nuclear technology, even though it is clear that they did intend to demonstrate before the world their capacity to explode a bomb of several kilotons.

Michel Saint-Mleux, a physician, was an inspector at the UNSCOM between 1991 and 1998.