Israel sees smuggling as key to Iraqi nuke capability

TEL AVIV — Israel is concerned that Iraq is quietly smuggling enriched uranium or plutonium from former East Bloc nations as part of Baghdad's efforts to build nuclear weapons.

Israeli officials and analysts said they don't expect Iraq to complete indigenous production of enriched uranium or plutonium for another few years. But they said Baghdad could compensate by smuggling such material from countries in the former Soviet Union.

In such a scenario, Iraq would need only several months to complete a nuclear bomb. "The assessment of Iran and Iraq is built on indigenous capability and not smuggled uranium," said Shai Feldman, director of Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies. "If it obtains enriched uranium, then Iraq doesn't need three years. It could complete this in six months."

Israeli officials and analysts said the release of intelligence reports on Iraq's nuclear capability is meant to highlight the danger of the regime of President Saddam Hussein. Over the last week, the CIA and Germany's BND intelligence agency have released portions of assessments that warn of Iraq's nuclear plans.

The Iraqi military capability was a key subject in talks between Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday. Israeli sources quoting Powell as saying that the United States would continue to strike Iraqi military targets.

Israeli officials urged Powell to stop the flow of Iraqi oil to Syria, which is becoming a major source of revenue for Baghdad's weapons program. They said Iraq is pumping up to 300,000 barrels of oil a day from Kirkuk to the Syrian port at Banyas in operations that are not under United Nations supervision.

"Iraq is on the verge of nuclear weapons," Regional Cooperation Minister Shimon Peres, who is slated to be Sharon's foreign minister, told Israel Radio on Monday.

Some analysts said Israel has not paid enough attention to the Iraqi threat, preferring to focus on the nuclear and missile programs of Iran. The analysts warned that Iraq, unlike Iran, has demonstrated that its threats to attack Israel are not empty words.

"We have to be extremely alert of what is actually happening in Iraq -- that is the rearmament of nonconventional weapons," Danny Shoham, an expert at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Affairs, said. "We have to be completely prepared in the intelligence sphere of what is happening there and to focus on the their facilities in case we have to attack them."

Israel has urged the United States to increase aid for the development of improved anti-missile defense systems for the Jewish state. Officials said the current Arrow system is insufficient against missiles with nonconventional warheads.

"We need to jointly improve the Arrow missile system and develop a system to destroy missiles in their boost stage as they are being launched," Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said. "We have to enter new projects to develop smarter systems to defend against ballistic missiles. This is what is on the agenda between us and the United States. It was stuck for all sorts of reasons not connected to our side. Now, that there is a new administration and with a bolstered Iraqi threat, we should begin to work on these issues."