page_title: Iraq and weapons of mass destruction
section_title: Program development 1960s–1980s
hierarchical_section_title: Iraq and weapons of mass destruction / Program development 1960s–1980s
caption_attribution_description: English: Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility - 10 March 1991. The Tuwaythah Nuclear Research Facility, Baghdad, Post-strike.Français&#160;: Centre de recherche nucléaire de Tuwaythah le 10 mars 1991 après un bombardement.العربية: منشأة بغداد للأبحاث النووية - ١٠ آذار/مارس ١٩٩١. منشأة التويثة للأبحاث النووية، بغداد، بعد الهجمة.
context_page_description: Iraq actively researched and later employed weapons of mass destruction from 1962 to 1991, when it destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile and halted its biological and nuclear weapon programs as required by the United Nations Security Council. The fifth President of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was internationally condemned for his use of chemical weapons during the 1980s campaign against Iranian and Kurdish civilians during and after the Iran–Iraq War. In the 1980s, Saddam pursued an extensive biological weapons program and a nuclear weapons program, though no nuclear bomb was built. After the Persian Gulf War, the United Nations located and destroyed large quantities of Iraqi chemical weapons and related equipment and materials; Iraq ceased its chemical, biological and nuclear programs.
  In the early 2000s, the administrations of George W. Bush and Tony Blair asserted that Saddam Hussein's weapons programs were still actively building weapons, and that large stockpiles of WMDs were hidden in Iraq.
context_section_description: 1959 –  August 17 USSR and Iraq signed an agreement for the USSR to build a nuclear power plant and established a nuclear program as part of their mutual understanding.
  1968 –  a Soviet supplied IRT-2000 research reactor together with a number of other facilities that could be used for radioisotope production was built close to Baghdad.
  1975 –  Saddam Hussein arrived in Moscow and asked about building an advanced model of an atomic power station. Moscow would approve only if the station was regulated by the International Atomic Energy Agency, but Iraq refused. However, an agreement of co-operation was signed on April 15, which superseded the one of 1959.
  After 6 months Paris agreed to sell 72 kg of 93% uranium  and built a nuclear power plant without IAEA control at a price of $3 billion.
  In the early 1970s, Saddam Hussein ordered the creation of a clandestine nuclear weapons program. Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs were assisted by a wide variety of firms and governments in the 1970s and 1980s. As part of Project 922, German firms such as Karl Kolb helped build Iraqi chemical weapons facilities such as laboratories, bunkers, an administrative building, and first production buildings in the early 1980s under the cover of a pesticide plant. Other German firms sent 1,027 tons of precursors of mustard gas, sarin, tabun, and tear gasses in all. This work allowed Iraq to produce 150 tons of mustard agent and 60 tons of Tabun in 1983 and 1984 respectively, continuing throughout the decade. Five other German firms supplied equipment to manufacture botulin toxin and mycotoxin for germ warfare. In 1988, German engineers presented centrifuge data that helped Iraq expand its nuclear weapons program. Laboratory equipment and other information was provided, involving many German engineers. All told, 52% of Iraq's international chemical weapon equipment was of German origin. The State Establishment for Pesticide Production (SEPP) ordered culture media and incubators from Germany's Water Engineering Trading.
caption: Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility – 10 March 1991. The Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, Baghdad, Post-strike.
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