Last year I got a bit worked up about Noam Chomsky’s view of the consequences of Israel’s strike on Iraq’s nuclear power plant at Osirak. Recently, I’ve seen two interesting arguments in favour of Chomsky’s view, and against my own. For anyone who didn’t get enough of this issue the last time around, Eric Umansky has a brief post on the subject worth reading.
{ 2005 02 07 }
Kegri | 08-Feb-05 at 2:36 am | Permalink
jesus, mary and joseph in the garden of eden! leftovers again?!!?
we, the loyal readers of explananda, demand an end to reheats, and a new quote under the banner. oh, and a jpeg of your new cleavage.
Chris | 08-Feb-05 at 7:22 am | Permalink
Oh, my cleavage, eh? You’d love to feast your eyes on my firm, full, perky man-boobies, wouldn’t you? Well, tough! When the internet behaves, the internet will get its treat.
Paul | 08-Feb-05 at 1:06 pm | Permalink
This page on the Federation of American Scientists’s website supports the view that the Osiraq plant was not suitable for making bombs, that there was a significant inspection regime in place, and that the strike was counter-productive.
Juan Cole also once posted on the issue. An excerpt [I can't get indentation to work, so everything below this is from Cole's post]:
[Imad] Khadduri [a former Iraqi nuclear scientist who joined the program in 1975. He gave an extended interview to Peter Jensen, published in the Irish Times on Jan. 6, said that] the US had initiated Iraq’s nuclear programme in 1956 by dispatching to Baghdad the “Atom for Peace library” which, during the Eisenhower administration, was supplied to many world governments and used by at least two, India and Pakistan, as the starting point for bomb-making.” He said that the non-military Atoms for Peace program was continued in Iraq by the Arif government, which bought from the Soviet Union “a two-megawatt research reactor which went critical in 1966-67.”
He explained that “During 1975 France provided Iraq with a light-water reactor, Osirak, which was specifically designed to be unsuitable for the production of plutonium for a bomb.”
He maintained that “The bombing by Israel of Osirak in June 1981 prompted Iraq to take the decision to go ahead with weaponisation.”
Rodger | 09-Feb-05 at 2:14 pm | Permalink
One of the Atlantic letters reprinted by Umansky is from Dan Reiter of Emory University. He and I are both part of a research group on Preemptive and Preventive War at the University of Pittsburgh. Dan’s policy brief on this topic can be found on-line.