S/2001/450
8 May 2001

Letter dated 5 May 2001 from the Permanent Representative of Iraq to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General         

On instructions from my Government, I should like to inform you that on 29 April 2001 The New York Times, the mouthpiece of world Zionism, published a report that in 1987 Iraq had tested a radiological bomb. It regarded this as "moral barbarism", and it reported the concern of American experts at the possibility that Iraq was importing the materials necessary to make such a bomb. United States officials seized on this false report, and on 1 May 2001 a spokesman for the Department of State expressed the concern of his Government at the possibility of Iraq acquiring radiological weapons. He made use of this false report as a prelude to promoting his Government’s policy of urging that the embargo against the people of Iraq should be strengthened and that the aggression against it should be continued. In order to refute these fabrications, we should like to place before you the facts set forth hereunder.

1.        In 1987, at the height of the people of Iraq’s glorious defence of its land against the Iranian invasion and against the use by Iran of weapons of mass destruction, an Iraqi technician conceived the idea of making a defensive radiological bomb. Iraqi specialists explored the technical and practical aspects of this idea, and they ascertained that it was not feasible. They abandoned it on the grounds that it was not efficacious and would cause soil contamination that it would be difficult to clean up after the expulsion of the invaders. The idea died, and no radiological bombs were manufactured and none were tested.

2.        In 1995, in the context of the complete transparency of its dealings with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the former Special Commission with a view to closing the files on the nuclear and other issues, Iraq informed IAEA and the former Special Commission of all minor details, research projects and ideas, including the idea of the Iraqi technician for a defensive radiological bomb. IAEA was persuaded by the clarifications provided by the Iraqi side that the idea had not been feasible. It was also stated in the former Special Commission’s report of 11 April 1996 that "Iraq declared that no order to produce radiological weapons was given and the project was abandoned" (S/1996/258, para. 91).   

Since 1995, the reports of IAEA have stated that it has obtained from the Iraqi side a complete picture of its former programmes. The Agency’s report of 9 April 1998 (S/1998/312, para. 35) states that:

"The Iraqi counterpart has fulfilled its obligation to produce a document containing a summary of the technical achievements of its clandestine nuclear programme. The summary is regarded by IAEA to be consistent with the technically coherent picture of Iraq’s clandestine nuclear programme developed by IAEA in the course of its activities in Iraq."   

In its report of 27 July 1998 (S/1998/694, para. 35), the Agency States that:

"As previously recorded, there are no indications of Iraq having retained any physical capability for the indigenous production of weapon-usable nuclear material in amounts of any practical significance, nor any indication Iraq has acquired or produced weapon-usable nuclear material other than the nuclear material verified by IAEA and removed from Iraq in accordance with paragraph 13 of resolution 687 (1991)."

3.        Following the United States-British aggression against Iraq of 16 December 1998, IAEA continued its activities in Iraq under the Safeguards Agreement concluded by Iraq and the Agency in accordance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The Agency’s inspection teams continued to visit Iraq and to verify that there were no activities that were contrary to Iraq’s undertakings under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The most recent Agency inspection team visited Iraq between 21 and 23 January 2001, and in his letter dated 6 April 2001 addressed to the President of the Security Council (S/2001/337, enclosure), the Director General of the Agency stated the following concerning the visit.

"... the Agency carried out, in January 2001, a physical inventory verification of the declared nuclear material in Iraq, pursuant to the Safeguards Agreement concluded between Iraq and the Agency in accordance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. With the cooperation of the Iraqi authorities, Agency inspectors were able to verify the presence of the nuclear material remaining in Iraq that is subject to safeguards."

The above information confirms that the suspicions of the United States are misplaced and lack any rationale and that there is no indication that they are credible. Indeed, the article itself reports that non-American nuclear experts are saying that Iraq has neither programmes to develop radiological weapons nor the reactors needed to make radioactive materials for them.

4.        The article in The New York Times states that the newspaper obtained the information concerning the radiological bomb from a private institution that, in turn, acquired it from United Nations officials. This acknowledgement once again confirms that the former Special Commission had the habit of leaking and distorting the information it obtained from its work in Iraq and of using it for the purposes of the United States-Zionist policy of aggression against Iraq. This admission can be added to the former Special Commission’s black record of using the mechanisms of the United Nations to spy on Iraq and fabricate crises with it in order to justify the unilateral use of force against it by the United States and its abject dependency the United Kingdom. It ought to be said in this connection that the American Deputy Executive Chairman of the former Special Commission, Charles A. Duelfer, published an article in The Los Angeles Times on 22 April 2001 in which he accused Iraq of endeavouring to spread foot-and-mouth disease in the world. This false charge illustrates the tendentious approach of Special Commission officials, and especially of the "Anglo-Saxons" among them, when dealing with Iraq.

5.        The timing of the resuscitation of this defunct subject and of its inflation in such a distorted manner are to be seen in the context of the anti-Iraq campaign being waged by the United States for the purpose of maintaining the embargo and promoting so-called smart sanctions. This also distracts attention from the crimes the United States has been committing against the people of Iraq, including as they do: the ongoing daily aggression in the unlawful no-flight zones; the maintenance of the comprehensive sanctions that have taken the lives of nearly 2 million Iraqis, most of them children and women; and the use of depleted uranium, which constitutes the crime of the epoch and "moral barbarism" in its most manifest form. This is to say nothing of the American moral barbarism that found expression in the use of nuclear weapons against Japanese civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in the use of chemical weapons against the people of Viet Nam and biological weapons against the people of Cuba and in other crimes in all parts of the world. In raising this storm of mendacity the United States is also trying to affect the official and civic support and sympathy in all parts of the world for Iraq and for its just cause and the demand for the lifting of the unjust embargo against Iraq and for a halt to the ongoing aggression against it.   

I should be grateful if you would have this letter circulated as a document of the Security Council.

Signed Mohammed A. Al-Douri           
Ambassador           
Permanent Representative