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Khan’s Bomb Offer to Saddam’s Iraq: Document Showing Iraq’s Interest in Nuclear Weapon Design

April 1, 2010

The document below is an IAEA Action Team translation from Arabic of the final instructions from Iraq’s secret nuclear weapons program (PC-3) to Technical Consultations Corp., the procurement organization of Iraq’s intelligence organization the Mukhabarat, on how to respond to the middleman who said he represented A.Q. Khan and offered extensive help building nuclear weapons.  This letter shows that PC-3, headed by Jaafar Dhia Jaafar, took this offer seriously and focused on what it needed most in the fall of 1990, namely help on nuclear weapons designs.  In an earlier memo, Jaafar had ordered the preparation of such a response.  The middleman had originally given a written offer to the Iraqis outlining how Khan would help Iraq attain a nuclear weapon in three years. 

To view the original nuclear offer to Iraq from the Khan network, click here.  For more information on this offer, PC-3’s response, efforts to keep these documents from becoming public, and the IAEA Action Team’s effort to understand and confirm this offer, see chapter 4, Peddling Peril.

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