Springtime, Taxes, and the Attack on Iraq
The U.S.
attack on Iraq is inevitable.
By Richard A.
Muller
Technology for
Presidents
February 7,
2002
In the next
few months, spring will return, we will pay our taxes, and the United States
will attack Iraq. The seasons have always returned, with perhaps a few
exceptions when asteroids and comets slammed into the Earth. Taxes are often
listed among those things considered "inevitable." Why do I put the
U.S. attack on Iraq on the same list? Because it is also going to happen, and
happen soon. My prediction is not based on hearing three jackals howl in the
night, or on the fact that Mars and Venus are flirting in the heavens; it's
based on what I consider to be a clear vision of some recent political and
technological events. After I review the facts, I think you will share this
vision with me.
First, recall
some facts from Desert Storm in 1991. At the end of the war, United Nations
inspectors visiting Tarmiya, Iraq, found a huge facility containing over a
hundred calutrons or parts of calutrons. This discovery was a shock to many of
us. Calutrons were invented by Ernest Lawrence in the early 1940s, and he named
them after "Cal" -- the nickname for the University of California at
Berkeley, my school. His idea was to use industrial-scale mass spectrometry on
the isotopes of uranium, and perhaps separate enough U-235 to be able to make
an atomic bomb. His program was an outstanding success. By 1945, Lawrence's
calutrons (massively installed at Oak Ridge, TN) had separated enough U-235 to
make one weapon.
That bomb was
never tested. It didn't have to be. A bomb based on U-235 can use a
"gun" style configuration, and this was considered so reliable (and
uranium was so difficult to separate) that no test was needed. The famous
"first atomic bomb" tested at Alamogordo, NM, by contrast, was a
plutonium bomb. Such a bomb requires implosion, a very tricky business, and it
was not clear that it would work. So it was tested, and it worked. The uranium
bomb built using calutrons, never tested, was first used over Hiroshima,
destroying the city and its population. A few days later a plutonium bomb, a
copy of the Alamogordo bomb, did the same to Nagasaki.
Why were we
shocked to find calutrons in Iraq? Because we were too stupid to have
anticipated them. The inspectors were looking for centrifuges, for laser separation,
for diffusion plants -- in other words, for some modern method of preparing
nuclear material. Apparently, nobody guessed that Saddam Hussein would revert
to the simplest, most reliable method, the one that had worked for the United
States in its desperation five decades earlier.
Saddam had
constructed facilities, at an estimated cost of $8 billion, to build a bomb
that didn't require testing. How far did he get? Does he have a bomb? According
to official values released by the U.S. Government, a critical mass of
plutonium is about 6 kg. They haven't released the value for uranium, though
many popular values are stated on the Web. But 6 kg of plutonium, less than a
half a liter in volume, will clearly make a bomb. Did Saddam separate enough
uranium to do so? Most commentators seem to think he did not. The facility was
destroyed before it could become truly productive, before it produced a
critical mass.
As part of the
cease-fire agreement, Iraq was to allow ongoing inspections by UNSCOM, the
United Nations Special Commission. Those visits continued until August 5, 1998,
when Saddam abruptly terminated all inspections.
If you want to
put a benign interpretation on this, you could argue that Iraq felt that its
rights as an independent country had been denied, and that the UN had no right
to inspect its facilities. Those who are more wary of Iraq say the end of
inspections was the inevitable consequence of good detective work by UNSCOM.
These skeptics say that the inspectors would never have been allowed to find
the nuclear weapons plants Saddam was building; all they could do was get close
enough that Saddam would eject them. After that, it would be up to the
President and the U.S. military to do the rest.
It is useful
to remember the character of Saddam Hussein. He is the man who ordered that
Kuwait be set on fire, with the expectation that it would burn for decades.
There was no military value to this act. It was done out of vengeance, out of
hatred, out of a viciousness that even today is hard to believe.
Do you believe
that Saddam has stopped developing nuclear weapons? Does anybody? Some people
ask for hard evidence that he is doing so. The implication is that the absence
of evidence is evidence of absence. Others question the assumption that Saddam
is guilty simply because he refuses inspections, saying that this is denying
him due process. Shouldn't we assume innocence, until proven guilty? Doesn't
Saddam have rights too?
I'm not going
to answer those questions. My role is not to advise, but to predict.
On September
11, the U.S. was attacked. Now imagine that you are President Bush. You know
3,000 people were killed by terrorists with no warning, with no demands, just
out of the blue. You know that Saddam was once, a few years ago, caught in the
process of trying to build an atomic bomb. You know that he burned Kuwait out
of spite. You know that he ejected the inspectors over three years ago. Can you
take the risk that Saddam is not developing nuclear weapons again? The horror
of September 11 was great, but it was nothing compared to the potential
devastation of a nuclear explosion.
Of course, you
(Mr. or Ms. President) will first demand that inspections resume. You may even
give a deadline. Will Saddam accede? Maybe, and then the crisis will end. Whew!
But if he doesn't, what will happen? I think the answer is obvious. It has
nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with past grievances (Iraqi agents
allegedly tried to assassinate George W. Bush's dad when he was visiting Kuwait
in 1993). It has nothing to do with the reports from Iraqi defectors (they
could be lying). It has to do solely with the responsibilities of the U.S.
President, as he (and many U.S. citizens) perceive them to be.
It is as
predictable as the coming seasons, and as taxes. The U.S. is going to attack
Iraq.