Although the Department of Energy dissented against other Departments' opinions on the Iraqi aluminum tubes its intelligence office went along with the prevailing view that Iraq was trying to “rejuvenate” its nuclear program.

This DIA article briefly describes Iraq’s effort to procure aluminum tubes from 1986 to 1991 and discusses the potential for their use for conventional military purposes.

These talking points, prepared by John T. Kriese who at the time was both chief of the Nuclear Energy Division at DIA and chairman of the Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Community, focused on the intelligence the US had available on the Iraqi nuclear program.

This issue of Proliferation Analysis and International Assessments includes a heavily excised article on Iraq, a piece on South Africa’s security prospects, and a apparently a third essay that has been wholly exempted. The essay on South Africa’s nuclear aims suggests that the arguments pro and con for a nuclear capability to deal with regional security threats are so powerful that “internal political and bureaucratic” consideration are probably more relevant for nuclear decisions.

This report found “no hard evidence” that Iraq was intent on a nuclear weapons capability. Nevertheless, considering the scope of Iraq’s “ambitious” nuclear program, intelligence analysts concluded that the Baath regime was covertly seeking a weapons capability to support its pursuit of regional hegemony and to match the perceived Israeli nuclear threat.

With the term “weapons of mass destruction” having not yet fully come into general usage, this NIE used the term “special weapons” to describe nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons (formerly the term “special weapons” was sometimes used to describe nuclear weapons only). With numerous excisions, including the names of some countries in the sections on “East Asia and the Pacific” and “Central America,” this wide-ranging estimate provides broad-brushed, sometimes superficial, pictures of the situations in numerous countries along with coverage of international controls to halt sensitive technology exports to suspect countries.

With proliferation becoming a “greater threat to US interests over the next five years,” intelligence analysts believed that the “disruptive aspect of the proliferation phenomenon will constitute the greater threat to the United States.” While the estimators saw “low potential” for terrorist acquisition of nuclear weapons, the likelihood of terrorist/extortionist hoaxes was on the upswing. Significant portions of the NIE are excised, especially the estimate of Israel’s nuclear arsenal and its impact in the Middle East. Nevertheless, much information remains on the countries of greatest concern: Iraq and Libya in the Near East, India and Pakistan in South Asia, Brazil and Argentina in Latin America, and the Republic of South Africa, as well as those of lesser concern: Iran, Egypt, Taiwan and the two Koreas.