Jane's intelligence backgrounder. A timely reassessment of Iraq's nuclear programme

Iraq has recently been attracting a lot of attention, some of it contradictory. With the launch of the book Saddam's Bombmaker by the Iraqi nuclear defector Dr Khadir Hamza, which details his efforts to build an atomic bomb, there have been a spate of press conferences and news reports regarding Iraq's potential for joining the nuclear club. Though specifics are obscure, the perception among some observers is that Saddam Hussein could be within months of exploding his first nuclear test device if Iraq were to get illegal fissile material from Russia or on the international black market. Without that Iraq would need to rebuild many of the factories destroyed during Operation Desert Storm