BBC Link: Secret Sale Of UK Plutonium To Israel

Tuesday, 14 March 2006, 10:50 am
Opinion: Scoop Link

See Full Story (& Video Footage):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4789832.stm

The UK supplied Israel with quantities of plutonium while Harold Wilson was prime minister, BBC Newsnight can reveal.

The sale was made despite a warning from British intelligence that it might "make a material contribution to an Israeli weapons programme".

Under Wilson, Britain also sold Israel tons of chemicals used to make boosted atom bombs 20 times more powerful than Hiroshima or even Hydrogen Bombs.

In Harold Macmillan's time the UK supplied uranium 235 and the heavy water which allowed Israel to start up its nuclear weapons production plant at Dimona - heavy water which British intelligence estimated would allow Israel to make "six nuclear weapons a year".

Last August on BBC Newsnight we revealed the first British/Israeli deal, the sale of the heavy water, but the government responded by telling the International Atomic Energy Agency the UK was not a party to any sale to Israel and that all it did was sell some heavy water back to Norway.

Using Freedom of Information, Newsnight has obtained top secret papers. They show Foreign Minister Kim Howells misled the IAEA and that Britain made not one, but hundreds of secret shipments of nuclear materials to Israel.

See Full Story (& Video Footage):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4789832.stm

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