Aluminum tubes

Aluminum tubes purchased by the nation of Iraq were intercepted in Jordan in 2001. In September 2002 they were publicly cited by the White House as evidence that Iraq was actively pursuing an atomic weapon. Prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, many questioned the validity of the claim. After the invasion, the Iraq Survey Group determined that the best explanation for the tubes' use was to produce conventional 81-mm rockets; no evidence was found of a program to design or develop an 81-mm aluminum rotor uranium centrifuge.

In 2000, Iraq ordered, via a company in Jordan, 60,000 high-strength aluminum tubes manufactured from 7075-T6 aluminum with an outer diameter of 81 mm, and an inner diameter of 74.4 mm, a wall thickness of 3.3 mm and a length of 900 mm, to be manufactured in China. These tubes were classified as controlled items by the United Nations and Iraq was not permitted to import them.

The order was placed with an Australian company, International Aluminum Supply (IAS), which was associated with Kam Kiu Propriety Limited, a subsidiary of the Chinese company that would do the manufacturing. Concerned that the tubes might be related to Iraqi efforts to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program, Garry Cordukes, the director of the company, contacted the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS). In turn, ASIS notified US intelligence services.

ASIS also asked Cordukes to obtain a sample of the tubes for examination. He obtained one and handed it over to the ASIS.

On May 23, 2001, a container load of about 3,000 aluminum tubes left the factory in southern China. It traveled on a barge to Hong Kong. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was watching its progress, as was the ASIS. In July 2001, the tubes were seized in Jordan by the Jordianian secret police and the CIA, according to a CIA presentation later that year.

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