Seizure Fuels Fears of Iraq Nuclear Plans : Mideast: Baghdad appears determined to develop weapons. It may be years away from doing so, U.S. officials say.

The seizure in London of nuclear triggering devices bound for Iraq underscores a growing concern that Baghdad appears determined to develop nuclear weapons, although it may be years away from doing so, Bush Administration officials and non-government experts said Wednesday.

“Naturally we are concerned about their efforts, although we don’t see a near-term capability,” a spokesman for the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency said.

Other Administration officials said Iraq seems to be trying to acquire a nuclear arms capability a piece at a time by buying components wherever they can be found and stockpiling them until needed.

Iraq is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which prohibits non-nuclear nations from trying to acquire a weapons capability. However, critics noted that Iraq also signed the 1925 Geneva protocol banning chemical weapons but still developed and used poison gas in its 1980-88 war against Iran.

“We have reason to believe that they are putting into place an infrastructure that would support a nuclear weapons program while remaining within the grounds of the non-proliferation treaty for the time being,” said an Administration official, who requested anonymity. “How long would it take once they decided to go for it? That’s anyone’s guess, but the usual fudge is not within 10 years.”

Another official said that Iraq may be five to eight years away from nuclear capability.

Leonard S. Spector, author of “The Undeclared Bomb,” a book about the spread of nuclear arms, said Iraq almost certainly lacks the enriched uranium or plutonium needed to make a weapon.

But he said that it seems clear that Iraq is trying to design and test the non-nuclear parts of a bomb while trying to acquire the fissionable material.

“The weapons design team may have been trying to get some of the non-nuclear components to determine if they have mastered this part of the program,” Spector said.

“This is a huge setback for Iraq,” Spector added. “Now they are out in the open. They overreached and got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.”

However, India, Pakistan, Argentina and Brazil all have been caught trying to smuggle nuclear parts in recent years without provoking a significant international response.

The United States has long been a leader of the effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. But Geoffrey Kemp, a National Security Council expert on the Middle East during the Reagan Administration, said that Washington turned a blind eye to nuclear programs in Israel and Pakistan.

Intelligence sources said in recent interviews that both Iraq and Iran are actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons technology even though the Persian Gulf War is dormant. These sources said that Iraq has sent purchasers around the world to buy nuclear technology, virtually at any price.

Israeli warplanes destroyed the Osiraq nuclear reactor in 1981. Israel said its intelligence service had determined that Iraq was close to producing a bomb.

The Osiraq facility has not been rebuilt. However, Gary Milhollin, a professor at the University of Wisconsin law school and director of the Washington-based Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, said that Iraq has moved its bomb program to an underground plant.

Iraq has denied that it is trying to produce nuclear weapons. However, Iraqi officials often say that it is unfair for the Arab world to be without nuclear weapons when Israel is known to possess a substantial nuclear arsenal.

Times staff writers Robin Wright and Douglas Frantz contributed to this report.