Centrifuges are only one of several ways to enrich uranium and there is also plutonium separation.
Iraq pursued them all.
Well let’s take a close look at what’s actually found at your link. For reference anything below 20% U235 is low enriched uranium. Bomb grade HEU is 85% u 235 or greater.
Electromagnetic Isotope Separation (EMIS):
“According to Iraq’s declarations to U.N. inspectors, it managed to produce 640 grams of enriched uranium with an average enrichment of 7.2% at Tuwaitha and some 685 grams at an average enrichment of 3% at Al Tarmiya.”
Centrifuges:
“Iraq also attempted to enrich uranium with high-speed centrifuges. This effort had lower priority than the EMIS program.”
Everything listed under centrifuges is what Iraq ‘planned’ to do other than 1.9 kilogram they produced in 1990.
Laser Isotopic Separation (LIS):
“In May 1994 the IAEA received information indicating that Iraq had pursued laser uranium enrichment through both molecular and atomic vapor isotope separation. But the IAEA did not believe Iraq had made substantial progress in either. The IAEA had no evidence that these efforts achieved any isotopic separation, or that Iraq had developed even the most rudimentary capabilities. “
” Iraq’s AVLIS experiments in 1986 and 1989 were inconclusive, however, and Iraq claimed that further work was abandoned due to these failures and the low priority given to the laser program.”
Chemical and Ion-Exchange Separation:
” The reason for chemical enrichment was to provide feedstock for the EMIS separators, so they could begin with low enriched uranium instead of natural uranium, thereby boosting efficiency.”
“According to Iraq, the most promising project, though still at the conceptual design stage in late 1990, combined both enrichment methods in a hybrid process having a solvent extraction first stage and an ion exchange output stage, in order to produce up to 5 metric tons per year of 4 to 8% enriched uranium.”
Gaseous Diffusion:
“However, according to an Iraqi scientist, this activity, which was carried out in 1989, had not progressed beyond the qualification of a single barrier. In parallel to the barrier studies, Group I attempted to reverse-engineer compressors, in cooperation with Iraq’s Specialized Institute for Engineering Industries, but Iraq claimed that this attempt was not successful. According to Iraq, all activities related to gaseous diffusion ended in 1989 and priority was given instead to gas centrifuge enrichment. According to the former director of Iraq’s nuclear weapon program, Khidir Hamza, however, the Iraqis perfected the diffusion barrier in 1993, under the noses of the inspectors. Dr. Hamza believes that diffusion is the most likely path a reconstituted Iraqi nuclear program would take in order to enrich uranium for its bombs.
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There’s no record of them having produced any enriched uranium via gaseous diffusion if they even managed to get it to work.
Diversion of Reactor Fuel:
“After its invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Iraq intended to illegally divert to bomb-making a quantity of highly enriched uranium that was being inspected by the IAEA. The HEU was contained in the fuel of Iraq’s two research reactors at Tuwaitha. Iraq had at its disposal some 41 kg of U-235 in its supply of research reactor fuel from Russia and France. The effort to divert that fuel, known as Project 601, started shortly after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. By December 1990, a chemical processing plant had been installed in the LAMA building at Tuwaitha which Iraq hoped would make available 26 kg of HEU within 2-3 months. The building was severely damaged, however, in the Gulf war, and plans were made to move a scaled-down project to Tarmiya. The IAEA’s decision to remove the reactor fuel, starting in November 1991, meant the end of the crash program.”
At least in this instance there actually is a record of highly enriched uranium. Of course Iraq had gotten it from French and Russian reactors and hadn’t made it themselves.
Plutonium Separation:
“Because the plutonium isotope 239, which is used to fuel fission bombs, exists naturally only in trace amounts, it is necessary to manufacture plutonium in a nuclear reactor. This is done by bombarding U-238 with slow neutrons. When the U-238 captures a neutron, the U-239 isotope is produced, which decays into plutonium 239.
Iraq used its Russian-supplied IRT-5000 research reactor to irradiate (noncontinuously - to avoid detection during IAEA inspections) three U-238 fuel elements manufactured from December 1988 to February 1989 at Iraq’s Experimental Fuel Fabrication Research Laboratory (known as ERFFL or EFFRL). Iraq also irradiated one element for 22 days between February and April 1989, and two additional elements for 50 days between September 1989 and January 1990. “
And the amount of Plutonium produced was?
Weaponization:
“In 1995, Iraq admitted to the IAEA that it had considered several implosion-type bomb designs”
“Iraq also admitted studying several approaches to building a neutron initiator, which supplies the neutrons necessary to set off a nuclear chain reaction. Iraq produced and recovered tritium by irradiating lithium, and produced and recovered polonium by irradiating bismuth. “
” In fact, the U.S. Departments of Defense and Energy helped train three Iraqi scientists from Al Qaqaa at a quadrennial international detonation conference in Portland, Oregon, where nuclear weapon detonation technology and flyer plate technology were presented. The latter is used to control the force and shape of implosive shock waves.”
oops.
“Iraq mastered the key technique of creating an implosive shock wave, which squeezes a bomb’s nuclear material enough to trigger a chain reaction. The smaller Iraqi design also used a “flying tamper,” a refinement that “hammers” the nuclear material to squeeze it even harder, so that bombs can be made smaller without diminishing their explosive force. The inspectors determined that Iraq had managed to develop a successful bomb design and lacked only the fissile material to fuel it.”
“Lacked only the fissile material fuel it”
Well how could they lack fissile material if they were cranking out U 235 via all the techniques listed above from the site you linked to?
Well they lacked the highly enriched U 235 because they hadn’t managed to make any despite fiddling around with it for years. Unlike Pakistan and North Korea, which actually do have bombs.