Iraq was three years away from producing a nuclear bomb before the 1991 Gulf War, the no 2 Iraqi scientist on the secret programme said on Tuesday. Noman Saad Eddin Al-Noaimi, a former director-general of Iraq’s nuclear program, said the Iraqis were able to produce less than 1 kg of highly enriched uranium before the programme was halted. It is estimated that a bomb would require at least 10 kgs of the uranium substance.‘‘Producing the appropriate amount would have required at least two more years, under normal circumstances,’’ he said. ‘‘Putting that substance into a weapon could have taken an additional year,’’ he said on the sidelines of a Beirut meeting on the repercussions of the Iraq invasion. Al-Noaimi, who retired in the late 1990s, said other scientists may have different estimates on how close Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was to make the weapon. ‘‘This is my personal estimation. Others could be more optimistic or more pessimistic, but my personal assessment is that we were two to three years away from that, if everything went according to the required level and speed,’’ he said.The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency hasn’t said how close Iraq came to building a nuclear bomb, but its website notes there were ‘‘indications that, by January 1991, Iraq had not overcome all the steps needed to produce a nuclear weapon.’’
