Publication Laka-library:
The origin of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program:
Technical reality and Western hypocrisy
| Author | S.Erkman, A.Gsponer, JP.Hurni, S.Klement |
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5-15-0-00-08.pdf |
| Date | October 2008 |
| Classification | 5.15.0.00/08 (IRAQ) |
| Front | 
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From the publication:
The origin of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program: Technical reality and Western hypocrisy by Suren Erkman, Andre Gsponer, JeanPierre Hurni, and Stephan Klement Independent Scientific Research Institute Box 30, CH1211 Geneva 12, Switzerland ISRI0509.11 20 October 2008 Preface: From 1979 to 2005 The existence of this report is due to a simple event: The visit to CERN (the European center for nuclear research) in Spring 1979 of a few Iraqi engineers who showed a considerable interest in the construction details of a unique large magnet, which at the time was the key component of the NA10 experiment at CERN, in which Andre Gsponer was working as a physicist. Because of his unexpected discovery one year earlier of the relevance of particle accelerator technology such as developed at CERN to classified particle beam weapons research, which led him to study a lot of technical papers on the military implications of particle accelerator technology, Gsponer immediately understood that the only plausible explanation for Iraq’s interest in large magnets was to use themas “calutrons,” i.e., as electromagnetic isotope separators, to enrich uranium in view of making an atomic bomb—just like the American did in 1945 to produce the U235 of the Hiroshima bomb. Following this shocking realization of the crucial (but untold) importance of particle accelerator technology to the proliferation and further development of nuclear weapons, Gsponer left CERN in 1980 to work on technology assessment with the hope of contributing to nuclear disarmament by publishing his conclusions on the feasibility of calutrons, particle beam weapons, antimatter weapons, etc. This report consists of five papers and a postface, presented in the order in which they were published or released. They are authored by one or several people whose names are mentioned on the title page of this report, but whose responsibility extends only over those papers which bare their name.