WASHINGTON Ñ Iraq has sent Algeria quantities of uranium for a secret project, western analysts say. Although the North African state could be close to producing weapons-grade plutonium, no alarms have sounded here.

"The Algerian nuclear program has remained a mystery Ñ which should be of concern not just to the United States, which is making strenuous efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, but also to Israel," Reuven Pedatzur, a Tel Aviv University lecturer and a leading Israeli military analyst, said. "It is quite surprising that this issue is being ignored, particularly because of the Algerian cooperation with Iraq."

Algeria has at least two nuclear reactors, both of them overseen by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. One reactor, believed upgraded to 40 megawatts, was sold by China. The other was sold by Argentina. But analysts said Algeria has withheld information from the IAEA.

"The IAEA does not have the authority to inspect all of the facilities at the site, some of which are at the very center of the controversy over potential plutonium production," the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said in an article authored by David Albright and Corey Hinderstein.

The United States has raised the issue with China but did not obtain satisfactory answers. The Pentagon suspects Algeria is pursuing a nuclear program while the State Department has concluded that there is insufficient evidence to make such a determination, according to a report by Middle East Newsline.

In 1998, the Spanish intelligence service, CESID, estimated that Algeria could possess weapons-grade plutonium by the year 2000. The report said the Algerian nuclear program is designed for military purposes and the government has moved toward obtaining the technology for nuclear weapons.

"The Algerian nuclear program, originally conceived with a clear military purpose, continues to equip itself with the installations necessary to carry out all the activities linked to the complete cycle for obtaining military grade plutonium, a key element in a nuclear arms program," the Spanish intelligence agency report said.

In the absence of United Nations inspectors, Iraq has also been developing its nuclear program, analysts said. They said since 1998 Baghdad is only missing a steady supply of fissile material.

"The basic bomb components are there in Iraq," Khidhir Hamza, the founder of Iraq's nuclear program who defected in 1994, said. "The casting is there. The fuse components are there. Explosives are there. And the initiator for the nuclear reaction is there. So bomb-wise, Iraq is finished. It has the full technology to make a nuclear bomb."

Hamza told the American Enterprise Institute on Wednesday that Iraq might already have a nuclear weapon depending on Baghdad's access to a sufficient amount of nuclear material. Iraq is said to have acquired 1.3 tons of low-enriched uranium and 12 tons of natural uranium, which is enough material to produce six atomic bombs.

"Some of the tankers in Jordan that took Iraqi oil from Jordan were caught and nuclear equipment was inside them welded into the ship," Hamza said. "You have hundreds of tankers going out Iraq every day, how can you control this?"

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