Sunday, April 11, 2010
Former Iraq Uranium Enrichment Plant, built by Russians near Baghdad (photo: Texas Tech)
Development of a nuclear energy program is gaining political support within Iraq, according to a research paper produced for the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute. Norman Cigar, a U.S. Marine Corps research fellow, writes that “there is an emerging Iraqi consensus on the desirability of a peaceful nuclear program, with arguments supported by the expected benefits for electric power generation, agriculture, and medicine, as well as an eventual transition from oil.”
Cigar insists Iraqis will embrace nuclear power to prove they can keep up with their neighbors, especially Iran, which is reportedly seeking nuclear weapons. But divisions exist within Iraq over whether it’s a good idea for Iranians to possess such weapons of mass destruction. The majority Shiites are more likely to embrace this development, “while Sunnis continue earlier views of a nuclear-armed Iran as a threat.”
As for Iraq’s own ambitions, Cigar writes “daunting obstacles remain to rebuilding the country’s eviscerated nuclear infrastructure” which was dismantled by the West, along with the “emigration or death of former nuclear scientists.” The Iraqi government has asked France to build a new nuclear reactor, and it is trying to educate a new generation of nuclear scientists.
If the Iraq-France deal goes ahead, this would be quite a twist of history. Back in 1979, when Saddam Hussein was in power, the French began construction of a nuclear reactor in Iraq. On September 30, 1980, before it could be completed, Iran bombed the site and damaged it. Construction continued, but on June 7, 1981, Israel bombed it and destroyed it.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Summary: Thinking about Nuclear Power in Post-Saddam Iraq (by Norman Cigar, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College)
Thinking About Nuclear Power in Post-Saddam Iraq (by Norman Cigar, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College)
Iraq Invites France to Build Nuclear Reactor (Agence France-Presse)
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