After January 22, 2003: US Analysts Photograph Aluminum Tubes in Iraq Clearly Meant for 81mm Rockets

Sometime after Joe Turner’s presentation to IAEA scientists, US analysts collect and photograph tubes in Iraq that are “virtually identical” to the Medusa tubes made in Italy. The tubes even have a stamped logo of the rocket’s Italian manufacturer and the words, “81mm rocket.” This is reported by the Washington Post on January 24: “The quantity and specifications of the tubes—narrow, silver cylinders measuring 81 millimeters in diameter and about a meter in length—made them ill-suited to enrich uranium without extensive modification, the experts said. But they are a perfect fit for a well-documented 81mm conventional rocket program in place for two decades. Iraq imported the same aluminum tubes for rockets in the 1980s. The new tubes it tried to purchase actually bear an inscription that includes the word ‘rocket,’ according to one official who examined them.” [Washington Post, 1/24/2003; Washington Post, 8/10/2003 Sources: Unnamed US intelligence, US administration, and/or UN inspectors]