The article also says that,
Last month, British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that Saddam has been seeking to buy uranium from African countries (which produce 20 percent of the world supply). This is, of course, illegal, since he has no reactors, and no legitimate use for large amounts of uranium. But why would he do this, if he already had HEU? Doesn’t his interest prove that he is, at worst, rebuilding calutrons?
No. If I were Saddam, I would import uranium in order to give that impression, to lull the U.S. into a false sense of security, into believing that there is plenty of time. Let’s not make that same mistake twice—of assuming that Saddam is doing it in the obvious way.
This seams reasonable.
But there may be another possibility.
Alvin Weinberg confirmed in a letter published in Physics Today some years ago that Manhattan Project people considered "topping off" their U-235 or Pu-239 with Pa-231, should either production method - calutron enrichment or reactor uranium conversion - fail to supply adequate amounts of fissile material. This was early on, before both techniques proved very successful).
According to J. C. Spirlet et-al ( "Preparation and Purification of Actinide Metals," Adv. in Inorganic Chemistry, Vol. 31, pp. 1-41, 1987.) Pa-231 "occurs in pitchblende in the amount of 300mg/ton, about the same as
radium." As well, "British researchers... isolat[ed] ...some hundred grams of 231Pa from the sludge left over from uranium processing" for inorganic chemistry research.
Kilogram quantities of 231Pa (enough for a small U-Pa fueled fast-breeder reactor, or possibly even a bomb core or two, depending on the "design sophistication") could potentially be extracted by a sufficiently determined organisation - without ever having to overcome any sort of nonproliferation safeguards.
Jaro
-----Original Message-----
From: Chuck Cooper [mailto:cooperc@teleport.com]
Sent: Saturday October 12, 2002 4:37 PM
To: radsafe
Subject: The Lowest-Tech Atom Bomb (iraq)
Presented as weekend reading:
==========
The Lowest-Tech Atom Bomb
Technology for Presidents By Richard A. Muller October 11, 2002
What Saddam still needs for nukes.
Saddam Hussein had us completely fooled, once. Prior to Desert Storm in
1991, we had monitored and embargoed his importation of high tech
centrifuge and laser equipment that could be used to make
highly-enriched uranium (HEU). material thatonce you have itmakes
building an atomic bomb easy. After Saddams defeat, inspectors found
that he had spent an estimated $8 billion building calutrons, ancient
devices (from the 1940s) that Ernest O. Lawrence had used to make HEU
for the Hiroshima bomb. (See Springtime, Taxes and the Attack on Iraq,
technologyreview.com, Feb. 7, 2002). Nobody had anticipated that Saddam
would use such a low-tech approach.
===Snip========
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/wo_muller101102.asp