Yesterday, I had to spend the day and evening doing some required training. This included hours of briefings on subjects such as Chemical Weapons, Biological Weapons, and Nuclear Weapons. During the briefing, I heard a few things that made me say to myself, "Is that so?" During one briefing, a slide was shown that had a list of countries that supposedly have nuclear weapons. The briefer did say the slide was a little out dated. The country listed that stood out to me was Iraq.
Have they possessed a nuclear weapon at any time in history?
I have searched and searched and cannot find a time when Iraq actually possessed a nuclear weapon. I found reports that stated that Iraq wanted them and may have tried to implement certain processes to build one, but nothing was ever completed. Here are some links and quotes from my research:
From the Wikepedia article on Nuclear proliferation:
2.1 Iraq
Iraq had been making efforts to secure a nuclear potential since the 1960s. In the late 1970s a specialised plant, Osiraq, was constructed near Baghdad. The plant was attacked during the Iran-Iraq War and was destroyed by Israeli bombers in June 1981.
From the Wikededia article on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction
In January 2003, United Nations weapons inspectors reported that they had found no indication that Iraq possessed nuclear weapons or an active program. Some former UNSCOM inspectors disagree about whether the United States could know for certain whether or not Iraq had renewed production of weapons of mass destruction. Robert Gallucci said, "If Iraq had [uranium or plutonium], a fair assessment would be they could fabricate a nuclear weapon, and there's no reason for us to assume we'd find out if they had." Similarly, former inspector Jonathan Tucker said, "Nobody really knows what Iraq has. You really can't tell from a satellite image what's going on inside a factory." However, Hans Blix said in late January 2003 that Iraq had "not genuinely accepted U.N. resolutions demanding that it disarm."[43] He claimed there were some materials which had not been accounted for. Since sites had been found which evidenced the destruction of chemical weaponry, UNSCOM was actively working with Iraq on methods to ascertain for certain whether the amounts destroyed matched up with the amounts that Iraq had produced.[
Here is a link to a pdf the summarizes Iraq Nuclear Weapons Program:
Summary of Iraq's Nuclear Weapon Program (PDF)
The second thing mentioned in one of the briefings was that China had sold nuclear weapons to other countries. Again I thought, "Is that so?"
Here is my research:
I can find no evidence at all that China has ever sold a nuclear weapon to another country. They have sold technology and materials that could help others develop a weapon, but never have they sold an actual nuclear weapon: Here are some links:
CRS Report on China's Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction
China and weapons of mass destruction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I could find evidence of one country that has sold many nuclear weapons to other countries. Can anyone guess what country that is? 
The United States of America:
The Following is from Wikipedia the article is: Nuclear proliferation
2.4 United States-NATO nuclear weapons sharing
United States-NATO nuclear weapons sharing
The United States provides about 180 tactical B61 nuclear bombs for use by Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey under a NATO nuclear weapons sharing agreement. Some countries believe this violates Articles I and II of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, where the U.S. has committed:
"... not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly...".
The U.S. insists its forces control the weapons and that no transfer of the nuclear bombs or control over them is intended "unless and until a decision were made to go to war, at which the [NPT] treaty would no longer be controlling", so there is no breach of the NPT. However the pilots and other staff of the "non-nuclear" NATO countries practice handling and delivering the U.S. nuclear bombs.
It should not be forgotten that The United States was the first country in the world to successfully develop nuclear weapons, and is the only country to have used them in war against another nation. During the Cold War it conducted over a thousand nuclear tests and developed many long-range weapon delivery systems. It maintains an arsenal of about ten thousand warheads to this day, as well as facilities for their construction and design, though many of the Cold War facilities have since been deactivated and are sites for environmental remediation.
On the morning of August 6, 1945, the United States Army Air Forces dropped the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima, followed three days later by the detonation of the "Fat Man" bomb over Nagasaki, Japan during World War II in war against the Empire of Japan, part of the Axis Powers alliance.
In estimating the death toll from the attacks, there are several factors that make it difficult to arrive at reliable figures: inadequacies in the records given the confusion of the times, the many victims who died months or years after the bombing as a result of radiation exposure, and the pressure to either exaggerate or minimize the numbers, depending upon political agenda. That said, it is estimated that by December 1945, as many as 140,000 had died in Hiroshima by the bomb and its associated effects.[1][2] In Nagasaki, roughly 74,000 people died of the bomb and its after-effects with the death toll from two bombings around 214,000 people.[3][4] In both cities, the overwhelming majority of the deaths were those of civilians.
I think it is a problem in America that people just state things as fact when they have no idea what they are talking about. The idea of facts and truth have become lost. I will readily agree that my research is not as thorough as it could be, and I am willing to post any evidence that can be sent to me that would help inform me and others on the issues I have written about in this article.
