# So WHAT Happened to Saddam Hussein's Calutrons? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 18, 2004, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happened-to-saddam-husseins-calutrons/264850 "2004-09-18T14:39:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2004, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happened-to-saddam-husseins-calutrons/264850/1 "2004-09-18T14:39:57Z")
Saddam Hussein had an active atomic bomb program, and I understand that after the first Gulf War, IAEC inspectors discovered several calutron machines, which were hidden in the desrt. Calutrons are machines used to separate U-235 from U-238, so as to produce the enriched uranium necessary to build an atomic bomb. Now, before the secong Gulf War, Secretary Colin Powell mentioned the suspicious purchases of components used to build nuclear bombs…those aluminum cylinders, and electronic components (capacitors) necessary to run the calutron machines. Has any more of this stuff ever been found? I do think the case can be made that Hussein was supporting a small, clandestine program for atomic bomb manufacturing…yet I haven’t seen anything new on this for quite a while. What happened to the uranium fuel from the wrecked OSIRAK nuclear reactor (that the Israelis destroyed)-was it accounted for? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2004, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happened-to-saddam-husseins-calutrons/264850/2 "2004-09-18T15:05:34Z")
[According to the IAEA](http://www.iaea.org/worldatom/Programmes/ActionTeam/nwp2.html) : > [@](#): > > All known indigenous facilities capable of producing uranium compounds useful for fuel fabrication and for isotopic enrichment were destroyed during the Gulf War; IAEA inspected and completed the destruction of facilities; IAEA monitored the sites as part of their OMV activities. Powell claimed the aluminum tubes were for use in a centrifugal enrichment plant, not a [preparative mass spectrometer](http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/Calutron.html). Centrifugation and electromagnetic separation are completly different technologies. After the occupation, the aluminum tubes turned up in rocket manufacturing facilities. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2004, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happened-to-saddam-husseins-calutrons/264850/3 "2004-09-18T15:15:32Z")
CITE: All known indigenous facilities I emphasize “known”. It seems to me that an atomic-bomb operation could be fairly small. For example, could you make a bomb with a small factory and perhaps 100-150 workers? Something like this could be easily hidden…and restarted quite soon after inpsectors leave. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2004, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happened-to-saddam-husseins-calutrons/264850/4 "2004-09-18T16:28:37Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > CITE: > All known indigenous facilities > > I emphasize “known”. It seems to me that an atomic-bomb operation could be fairly small. For example, could you make a bomb with a small factory and perhaps 100-150 workers? Nope. Contrary to Rummy’s bullshit, a uranium enrichment facility is a very large, very power hungry beast. ---
**Author:** ![bizzwire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/958977/32.png) [@bizzwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizzwire)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2004, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happened-to-saddam-husseins-calutrons/264850/5 "2004-09-18T22:21:27Z")
Nobody uses Calutrons anymore. They’re so…World War II. Interesting Calutron Factoid: Since copper was in such high demand by the war effort, all the silver in the US mint was removed, drawn into wire, and used for the Calutron’s electromagnets. After the effort was over, it was remelted into ingots and returned. Factoid number two: Local women were recruited to operate the Calutrons in New Mexico because whenever a physicist would opeate it, he invariably would keep dicking around with the knobs and dials. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2004, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happened-to-saddam-husseins-calutrons/264850/6 "2004-09-19T07:34:10Z")
There was a goodbook about Hussein’s bomb project, by an Iraqi scientist…I think it was called Saddam’s Bomb Maker . Anyway, I recall hat Saddam could not afford a gaseous diffusion-type enrichment plant (these things are huge)! He went the calutron route because they were small and affordable…later, a palestinian scientist sold him on a new enrichment technology (laser separation). Unfortunately, this process didn’t work…and Saddam had the guy chopped upinto pieces! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2004, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happened-to-saddam-husseins-calutrons/264850/7 "2004-09-19T10:43:36Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > There was a goodbook about Hussein’s bomb project, by an Iraqi scientist…I think it was called Saddam’s Bomb Maker. [Saddam’s Bombmaker: The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0684873869/104-2603294-1595119?v=glance) Hamza was a fraud: > [@](#): > > n 1995, for instance, Khidhir Hamza, who had once worked in Iraq’s nuclear program and whose claims that Iraq had continued a massive bomb program in the 1990s are now largely discredited, gave United Nations nuclear inspectors what appeared to be explosive documents about Iraq’s program. > > Hamza, who fled Iraq in 1994, later teamed up with Chalabi. > > The documents, which referred to results of experiments on enriched uranium in the bomb’s core, were almost flawless, according to Andrew Cockburn’s recent account of the event in Counterpunch, a political newsletter and Web site. > > But the scientists were troubled by one minor matter: Some of the technical descriptions used terms that would be used only by an Iranian. They determined that the original copy had been written in Farsi by an Iranian scientist and then translated into Arabic. > > The International Atomic Energy Agency concluded the documents were fraudulent. [Iran used Chalabi to dupe U.S., report says](http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001935950_iranchalabi22.html)