Geoff Wainwright, unvetted and untested in the field, was about to go undercover.
In the United States, there was a quiet debate going on, too. The moment the NSA intercepted the Cordukes-Kamel e-mails, they were passed on to the CIA’s Counter Proliferation Division (CPD). The result was a flurry of excitement: just a couple of months earlier, the Division had established a task force on Iraq to discover exactly this kind of information. CPD resolved to continue monitoring the Australian deal, and, in turn, passed the intelligence on to analysts at the Agency’s Weapons Intelligence, Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Centre (WINPAC).
WINPAC analysts scrutinized the data to see if the tube specifications fitted the pattern of a nuclear centrifuge programme – and at this point alarms really started sounding.
Gas centrifuges work by spinning uranium hexafluoride at high speed – in the region of 60,000 to 90,000 revolutions per minute. At these speeds the lighter uranium-235 separates out from the heavier uranium-238, allowing for its collection. But achieving such speeds is hard. The tube or ‘rotor’ containing the hexafluoride must be extremely light and rigid. It must not flex or distort. Only a handful of alloys are sufficiently strong. 7075-T6 aluminium is one. It was for precisely this reason that Iraq was not allowed to import tubes made of the alloy. An Iraqi attempt clandestinely to import 60,000 of them was certainly cause for concern.
For the purposes of running a gas centrifuge, however, it is not enough simply to buy a tube made of the right alloy. The rotor needs to be manufactured to very precise tolerances. Imperfections in the tube wall will cause imbalance, and the rotor will fail at high speeds. Even tiny flaws – a fingerprint on the side of the tube – can cause it to burst. Since the outer edge of a gas centrifuge rotor can spin at speeds in excess of 700 metres per second – more than twice the speed of sound – the results can be catastrophic.
WINPAC analysts immediately recognized that the Iraqi front company was indeed requesting high tolerances in its aluminium tubes. According to the terms of the deal, the composition of the 7075-T6 had to be exact; the length of the tubes could not vary more than half a millimetre; wall thicknesses were to be held within a 0.1 mm tolerance; the depth of the chromate anodize had to be exactly 15 microns.
Hussein Kamel had rejected two samples from Garry Cordukes: the first on the basis that the chromate anodize was too thick, the second because the manganese content of the aluminium was not high enough. Then there was the issue of the packaging: according to the Australian contract, each tube had to be individually wrapped before shipping. Kamel had been very specific about this. Clearly, someone in Iraq was taking a great deal of care over this order.
WINPAC compared the specifications of the tubes to those of the rotors of known gas centrifuges and immediately found a couple that seemed to fit. One, the ‘Zippe type’, also used rotors of aluminium 7075-T6. Zippe’s rotors had a similar inner diameter and thickness, and were manufactured to similar tolerances. Another, the ‘Beams’ centrifuge, used rotors of a similar length and thickness, too.
The specifications of the aluminium tubes, their tolerances and Hussein Kamel’s excessive attention to detail in the order, together with the fact the tubes were obviously being procured in secret, persuaded WINPAC that they were destined for a clandestine centrifuge programme. Iraq was building a nuclear bomb.
For Geoff Wainwright, making contact with Garry Cordukes in Sydney was no great challenge: he was in the phone book. But how to get him to open up? Wainwright joked to colleagues that in the United States the FBI would kick down the aluminium trader’s door and cart him off to a secure unit for interrogation. Perhaps he might try something a little more nuanced? Like a coffee?
The problem was, the intelligence about the tubes had come from an intercepted e-mail. Crashing into Cordukes’ office and announcing that the game was up would let the trader – and his Iraqi customer – know that their e-mail was being read.
‘It was a top-secret signal,’ says Wainwright. And this was all part of a top-secret intelligence operation. So I had to figure out how I could go and meet this guy and gather more intelligence.’ A little tactical misdirection was called for. Wainwright picked up the phone.
‘Garry,’ he told the aluminium trader. ‘My name’s Geoff Wainwright. I’m the new guy, the assistant director at the Department of Defence, and I’ve only been in the job a few months.’
The lies began to flow.
‘Part of my job is to get out there and educate people in industry who might potentially export goods to a foreign country, not knowing that it’s illegal. I’m going to be in Sydney, and you’re on my list of people to talk to. Is it OK if I come and we meet up?’
A few days later, Wainwright flew to Sydney. Cordukes was interested: he assumed that the Department of Defence might be in the market for some aluminium. Wainwright was interested, too: if this deal was as important as the Americans suspected, he was at the spearhead of a significant undercover operation. Potentially, Saddam Hussein was building a nuclear weapon. He must be stopped.
The pair met in the lobby of Cordukes’ company building, shook hands, then moved into his office and sat down. Wainwright started his prepared spiel: ‘I’m the new guy, I’m just introducing myself, wanted to have a bit of a talk . . .’ then he paused.
‘As I walk into this guy’s office,’ he recalls, ‘what do I see leaning up against the wall but an aluminium tube! Two weeks of meetings, discussions with people and then I’m finally sitting there in front of the guy who was the subject of the signal – and the actual item is right there!’
With some effort, Wainwright forced himself to look away from the tube and slipped back into character: ‘I wanted to have a bit of a talk about the roles that you have, because you might have to export items that might be covered by our legislation.’ The former Customs officer handed over some printed material about export regulations, then suggested that, if Cordukes was ever contacted by someone who sounded dodgy, or asked for something unusual, he was the guy to call. Perhaps, Wainwright fished, the aluminium trader had faced such a situation before and been unsure how to act?
Cordukes bit.
‘Well, seeing as you’ve mentioned it,’ he said, ‘I just got this crazy e-mail from Jordan.’ A guy named Kamel had been in touch with an unusual request.
‘Really?’ deadpanned Wainwright. ‘That’s interesting.’ Then he had an idea. ‘Hey!’ he told the trader. ‘I’m only new in this job – but do you think this is something that maybe I should look at a bit closer?’
When Cordukes agreed that it might be worthwhile, Wainwright played a blinder.
‘That tube leaning up against the wall over there’ – he indicated the tube behind the desk – ‘Is that the sort of thing this guy Kamel’s after?’
Cordukes admitted that it was one of the prototypes.
‘Look, you wouldn’t mind if I sort of borrowed that from you? I could take it back to Canberra with me, analyse it with our scientific experts, then let you know whether it’s actually something that could be used to make something nasty’
The aluminium trader agreed: the tube was a reject, anyway. He didn’t have any use for it.
Wainwright could hardly believe his luck. ‘I thought, “You beauty!” I’ve gone to this meeting and here I am coming back with the tube! The actual evidence that was spoken about in the signal!’ He tucked the aluminium tube under his arm, told Cordukes he would be back in touch again, and departed.
As Geoff Wainwright wandered out into the Sydney traffic with one of the hottest pieces of intelligence on the planet under his coat, he wondered what his colleagues would think. It would have been hard to imagine a more successful initial assignment: Cordukes had no idea what was going on, Hussein Kamel had no idea what was going on. Certainly Saddam Hussein had no idea.
‘Everyone on the intelligence community wanted to know what was happening. They couldn’t wait for me to report back from my first meeting,’ he recalls. ‘I kn
ew that everyone was going to say, “What happened?” – “Well, hey, guys, guess what? I actually got the object!”’
Wainwright capitalized further on his success. Alongside the prototype tube, Cordukes had passed on some company details. Inside one of the handouts was a photograph of his factory in China. The moment he got back to Canberra, the intelligence officer handed the picture to the Australian Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organization and asked what they thought of it.
By the time Wainwright submitted his report the next morning, Defence Imagery had managed to locate the factory in China, zoomed in on it and obtained detailed satellite photographs of the entire plant – including a clear shot of a pallet-load of the tubes awaiting shipment.
‘I turn up to this meeting, and we’ve turned up with the pipe. We’ve got the brochure from the plant. We’ve zoomed in with all the photographs from space,’ he recalls. ‘We had everything that was in that signal, either photographs of it or the actual sample of it, the interviews that I’ve written up with Cordukes – all within about forty-eight hours.’
The material was passed on immediately to the CIA. ‘Sorry, guys!’ recalls Wainwright of the cable accompanying it. ‘It’s only been forty-eight hours and we didn’t have that much time, but here’s the tube, here’s the factory, here’s the photographs. Anything else you guys needed?’ He laughs. ‘It really blew the Americans’ minds.’
The Australian intelligence – the tubes, the order, the interview and the photographs – did blow the Americans’ minds. Wainwright’s information was utterly persuasive to the CIA. So certain was WINPAC in its judgement that the tubes were for an Iraqi centrifuge project that in early April 2001 the conclusion was included in the CIA’s most highly classified intelligence product: the President’s Daily Brief. Shortly afterwards, on 10 April, the Agency circulated a Senior Executive Intelligence Brief alerting its own staff to the fact. According to the brief there was little doubt: Iraq was trying to ‘jump-start’ a nuclear-weapons programme. The tubes ordered from Australia ‘have little use other than for a uranium-enrichment programme’.
This wasn’t entirely true. There was doubt. One of the first things the CIA had done when it received news of the Cordukes deal was to forward the tube specifications to the Department of Energy’s national laboratories at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. There was little that Oak Ridge staff didn’t know about gas centrifuges: after all, they made the things. Analysts there were uniquely qualified to determine what could and could not function as a centrifuge rotor. A team of nuclear scientists from the facility’s Field Intelligence Element was assembled to examine the data. They, in turn, sought advice from a professor at the University of Virginia, Houston Wood III.
‘I happened to be in town,’ recalls Wood. ‘They asked me to come over and take a look.’
The Professor, who had worked on gas centrifuges for more than thirty years, was considered one of the world’s foremost experts on the subject. He was led to a secure unit at the facility, handed the tube specifications and left to himself. Within half an hour he was convinced the tubes were not suitable for use in a centrifuge.
‘The material was too thick,’ he says. ‘That was the main thing. The thickness of the wall of the tube made it much too heavy.’ In addition, there was the issue of the chromate anodizing. Centrifuge rotors weren’t anodized – and certainly not with chromic acid. In Wood’s view the story didn’t add up: it would have been impossible even for the United States to manufacture a working centrifuge with the tubes, let alone Iraq. ‘They just didn’t work,’ he recalls.
The day after the CIA reported that there was ‘little use’ for the tubes other than as centrifuge rotors, the Department of Energy published its own assessment. The tube specifications were ‘not consistent with a gas centrifuge end use’, it stated. ‘The procurement activity most likely supports a different application.’
Clearly, an argument was brewing.
Australia was embroiled in the dispute from the outset. The country’s Defence, Science and Technology Organization in Melbourne ran tests on Cordukes’ prototype tube the moment Geoff Wainwright passed it on to them. Results were disappointing.
‘The key thing was: is this something that is really going to be used to enrich uranium?’ asks Wainwright. And the tests back from the Defence and Scientific Organization said “No”. They said, “It’s not the right strength. And it’s not the right alloy . . . it’s not something that we need to worry about.”’
Prodded by the United States, Australian intelligence now wondered whether this was true. The tube had been a prototype. Perhaps the ones in China were being made to higher specifications. There was only one way to find out.
Wainwright’s second meeting with Garry Cordukes took place in a coffee shop in Botany Bay. Time for a few home truths. All was not as it seemed, the intelligence officer informed the trader. Atlantic Trading Corps was a front company. The tubes weren’t for racing cars. They were for military purposes. In Iraq. As for the company’s chief executive, Hussein Kamel – was Cordukes aware that ‘Kamel’ was Saddam Hussein’s surname? The aluminium trader thought for a moment.
‘Fuck,’ he said. Are you serious? What do you want us to do?
Regarding the trade itself, Wainwright instructed Cordukes to proceed: so far, no laws had actually been broken. But perhaps he could do his government a favour. Was there any way he could obtain another sample? Cordukes explained he was shortly off to China to check on progress. ‘Happy to,’ he told Wainwright. ‘How do you want me to get it to you?’
A week later, a middle-aged man in an open-necked shirt was waiting for him in the arrivals hall at Sydney International Airport. Cordukes had two 7075-T6 tubes under his arm. ‘I said, “You’re from the Defence Department?” He said, “Yup.” I said, “You’re after these?” He said, “Yup. Thank you very much.” Off he went.’ It was the last Garry Cordukes was to hear from the Australian intelligence community. It was not, however, the last he was to hear about the tubes themselves.
In the meantime, the Australian had other concerns. The extrusion plant in China was having problems making the tubes. The Chinese didn’t know how to apply the chromate anodize that Hussein Kamel had demanded. Normally they pre-treated aluminium by dipping it in a chromate solution, then anodized it after it had been extruded. This order called for something rather different. They were stumped.
Cordukes suggested a compromise: why not anodize the tubes normally, then dip them in the chromate pre-treatment tanks afterwards? It was hardly a textbook solution.
‘I thought it was dodgy,’ admits Cordukes. ‘But if the things were only going to be used for exhaust flanges, it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference.’
Hussein Kamel didn’t seem too worried, so Cordukes wasn’t either. The only difference the chromate made was that it turned the tubes a green-yellow colour.
However, the process did slow down production. By mid-May the mill had only managed to make 2,000 tubes out of an order for 60,000. The aluminium was overdue, and an angry Hussein Kamel was demanding delivery.
‘For Christ’s sake!’ Cordukes told the mill. ‘Ship what you have. We can continue to work on the rest and ship them in two weeks as a full container load.’
On 23 May 2001,1,962 aluminium tubes were loaded into a container and moved to the docks. From there they would travel upriver to Hong Kong before making the journey to Jordan. Five days later, Cordukes was called in to the chairman’s office in the extrusion plant.
‘We’ve got a big problem,’ the chairman told him. The Chinese government, acting at the request of the United States, was demanding that the shipment be halted. The way the Chinese heard it, the United States would take any action necessary to prevent the tubes from reaching Jordan. Cordukes attempted to stop the shipment, but this proved impossible: two days earlier the container had been loaded on to a freight ship, the Kota Jaya, bound for Aqaba, Jordan.
By now the aluminium trader regretted ever having g
ot involved in the deal. He called Hussein Kamel in Jordan and informed him that he was not going to forward the bill of lading, without which the tubes could not be collected at their destination. Then, in true Aussie style, he gave the Iraqi a piece of his mind.
‘You’ve obviously fed me bullshit about what you’re going to use these tubes for,’ he said. ‘We’re not playing any more. We’re not releasing the bill of lading and we’re not producing any more tubes. Fuck off!’
But Cordukes was too late. The tubes were on their way.
When the shipment of aluminium tubes reached Jordan in June 2001, the authorities were waiting. A contingent of Jordanian intelligence agents, together with a handful of officers from the CIA’s Counter Proliferation Division, seized it.
The availability of hard evidence in the form of 1,962 aluminium tubes appears to have energized the WINPAC analysts. Arguments about the end-use of the tubes shifted gear. One analyst – cryptically referred to by media and government reports ever since as ‘Joe T’ – led the charge. Joe, who had worked with centrifuges at Oak Ridge before joining the Agency, was regarded as something of an expert on the subject. And for him, there were no two ways about it: this was a nuclear-bomb project in the making.
Joe T’s argument had two main premises. One: the tubes were suitable for centrifuge rotors. Two: they weren’t suitable for anything else. If the tubes were not intended for a uranium-enrichment programme, why were the tolerances so high? What were they for?
As it happened, a putative answer had already emerged. A month before the seizure of the tubes in Jordan, the Department of Energy had published a Daily Intelligence Highlight which noted that Iraq had purchased ‘similar’ tubes before ‘to manufacture chambers (tubes) for a multiple rocket launcher’. ‘Similar’ was an understatement. The previous tubes – also made of 7075-T6 aluminium – were 900 mm long, with an outer diameter of 81 mm and a wall thickness of 3.3 mm: identical to those of the Australian shipment.
A History of the World Since 9/11 Page 14