Dear Sirs,

Nicholas Kristof (NYT today) says that if Israel had not bombed the OSIRAK reactor in 1981 "Iraq would have gained nuclear weapons in the 1980s." He offers no evidence for this statement and there is much evidence against it. The reactor was deliberately unsuited to making plutonium and therefore unsuited for making bombs. This was obvious to me when I visited Iraq on December 29^th 1982 and visually inspected the reactor (which had been only partially damaged) and its surrounding equipment It was light water moderated unlike DIMONA or OSIRIS, which are heavy water moderated and are suited to making plutonium. Later Yves Girard*, one of the French designers of all three reactors gave me many more details and confirmed his reasons for the different design.

Unfortunately the fuel for the reactor, as is the fuel for the reactor the Russians supplied to Iraq in the 1960s, was uranium highly enriched in the fissile isotope U235. This can be a proliferation hazard and is now being replaced in research reactors by fuel of low enrichment. But it was arranged that no more than one fuel load would be in Iraq at any one time. It is secure if inside the reactor and can be in a secure inspected location. Indeed IAEA inspectors in November 1990 reported that the fuel (which had just arrived in 1980) was still untouched. The day after the bombing of OSIRAK, the Israeli Prime Minister Mr Begin described what he claimed was the OSIRAK reactor and claimed that there was a laboratory below the reactor for making plutonium. This description was completely incorrect. No such room ever existed. But Mr Begin’s description matches the DIMONA reactor, details of which were released unofficially to the Sunday Times in August/September 1986 by Mordecai Vununu, as well as personally to me by Yves Girard.

After my visit I know of no foreign scientists and technical people (other than IAEA inspectors) who visited the Iraqi nuclear research center. The French had made an arrangement for technicians to stay in Iraq for 5 to 10 years after start up. These could have kept their eyes open, and been unofficial inspectors. They could have visited, as I did but official IAEA inspectors did not, every building in the complex. It is highly probable that the bombing made Iraqis furious and eager to strike back. Documents that I saw in 1991 suggest the fast track for bomb development began in July 1981, after the bombing. These facts suggest to me that unless world leaders have much more reliable technical information than possessed by Mr Begin or Mr Kristof. a preemptive strike may well have the opposite effect to that intended.

Yours sincerely,