Is Iraq still capable of making a nuclear bomb?
If it managed to get fissile material, and that’s the bottleneck there. If it managed to get that, either from Russia, from some of the ex-Communist states, one way or the other, then it is within two to six months, … because they already built a mock-up, complete. They already have a trigger system. They already have the explosives–not as good as they should be, but they had plenty of time, eight years, to develop better explosives. And these are not proscribed. Iraq can work freely on explosives. OK? Casting, they perfected before the war. They can cast uranium. They had the explosive necessary, but they have better ones now, I’m sure. They have better design and development after the war. This is all they had to do. UNSCOM weapons inspections have been halted now for several months. And there’s no immediate prospect that they would start again. What do you think must happen? Now, why would you throw the inspectors out, unless you have something to hide or something to do, right?
