ATS: How Britain Helped Israel Get the Bomb, page 1

After an extensive piece of research, Michael Crick a journalist found out that in 1958, Britain agreed to sell Israel 20 tonnes of heavy water to Israel. This heavy water was used to help set-up the Dimona nuclear reactor in the Negev desert.

www.commondreams.org
Documents uncovered by Newsnight in the British National Archives show how, in 1958, Britain agreed to sell Israel 20 tonnes of heavy water, a vital ingredient for the production of plutonium at Israel's top secret Dimona nuclear reactor in the Negev desert.

Robert McNamara, President John F Kennedy's Defence Secretary, has told Newsnight he is "astonished" at the revelation that Britain kept this secret from America.

In Wednesday's programme, Newsnight reveals how British officials decided it would be "over-zealous" to impose safeguards on the Israelis, and chose not to insist that Israel use the heavy water only for peaceful purposes.
Earlier the Americans had refused to supply heavy water to Israel without such safeguards.

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After, Mordechai Vanunu, leaked the information on the Israeli Nuclear Program and this information I was rather shocked to find out that the British Government had played such a large part in it. The documents that Newsnight got a hold of, make it clear that they knew it would be going directly to Israel.

However, there is one piece that really bothered me. The man who brokered the deal between Israel, Norway and the United Kingdom is the same man who is now in charge of bargaining with North Korea and Iran. It is unfair for France and Norway to have gained so much negative international criticism for their involvement when the British Government was also heavily involved - selling enough heavy water to make 6 atomic weapons a year.

[edit on 9/12/2005 by Odium]