A diplomatic fracas is raised by Paris' nuclear aid to Baghdad
France, in its lust for oil, appears to have thrown to the wind all constraints of morality, good sense or even self-interest." Those piercing words emanated from the pen of a British Member of Parliament whose name still rings with authority: Winston Churchill, the grandson of the wartime Prime Minister. Charged Tory M.P. Churchill, 39, who on matters of Middle East politics is a fervent supporter of Israel: "The French government has taken upon itself, with a recklessness not shared by any other nuclear power, including the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China, responsibility for giving Iraq the nuclear bomb."
Churchill's remarks, made in a letter to the London Times, whipped up a controversy that has been simmering ever since Paris let it be known in 1976 that it would deliver a nuclear-power research facility to Iraq. The big question: Is France selling technology that could be used to produce an atomic bomb? The French, of course, say no, as do the Iraqis. But the Israelis, who would be most directly threatened, insist that Iraq could accumulate enough expertise and enriched uranium to make several nuclear weapons by the mid-1980s. Jerusalem has mounted a campaign to alert Western Europe and the U.S. to what it considers a mortal danger. Israel's Transportation Minister Haim Landau went so far as to accuse France of pursuing policies "similar to those of the Vichy regime" during World War II. Deputy Defense Minister Mordechai Zippori warned that if diplomatic efforts failed to halt the nuclear program, Israel would consider "alternative steps," presumably meaning a pre-emptive military strike.
The French believe the Israelis have already gone to extreme lengths to stop the delivery of nuclear materials. In April 1979 a band of saboteurs infiltrated a top-security compound near the French port city of Toulon and exploded plastic charges near two reactor cores that were scheduled to be shipped to Iraq three days later; the explosions caused extensive damage and delayed the program by months. The French suspect the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad was responsible for the raid. In June one of Iraq's top nuclear scientists was found bludgeoned to death in a Paris hotel room. In that case, however, French police were less convinced that the murder had anything to do with international antinuclear intrigue.
The sale of a research reactor to Iraq is not of itself controversial. Seventy-six research reactors have been sold by manufacturing countries to 33 other states, including several—such as Argentina, Brazil, Israel, South Africa, India and Pakistan—that have not signed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. What makes the current transaction with Iraq provocative is that it involves a country that has a reputation for political instability and for bellicosity in its foreign policy.
Baghdad still considers itself at war with Israel and is also a bitter rival of Iran. As the world's second largest oil exporter, after Saudi Arabia, Iraq under President Saddam Hussein has ambitions to replace Iran as the leading military power in the Persian Gulf region.