INSIDE THE IRAQI NUCLEAR
PROGRAM
A
HIGH-RANKING NUCLEAR SCIENTIST TELLS ALL
By: Sherrie Gossett*
Part 1: Beginnings
Author’s
Note:
The
debate over
Dr. Imad Khadduri was a top scientist involved in Iraq's
nuclear program from 1968 until the end of 1998, when he was able to escape. He
now serves as a network administrator in
It
was on a mild autumn evening in 1968 that Imad Khadduri first received the
invitation that would change his life. Sitting in an open-air café near the
Khadduri was intrigued: "I was not aware that the Russians had built a two
Mega Watt research reactor at Tuwaitha, twenty kilometers east of
After
taking a look at the research projects underway, Khadduri joined his former
high school colleagues who were working with several International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) sponsored scientists in the group.
The
Ghazi
Darwish, a prominent chemist, directed the meetings of the Nuclear Research
Center (NRC), whose membership numbered around 120.
Khadduri
recalls the meetings, which included scientific lectures and managerial
planning, as having an atmosphere "fragrant with enthusiasm, drive and
high hopes."
Early
in the summer of 1969, after spending several months doing research, Khadduri
decided it was time to complete his PhD.
He
then planned to return to the
A
turn of events would mean that Khadduri would resume his studies in
Young
scholar in Britain
During
a
Mikdashi had followed his PhD supervisor’s
transfer to the
"Why
don’t you stay here at the
The
next day, Khadduri met with Dr. T. Derek Beynon,
lecturer in the Reactor Physics Group in the (then) Department of Physics and
Astronomy at the
Dr.
Beynon was particularly impressed with a letter of
recommendation from Jafar Dhia Jafar that Khadduri was carrying in his coat
pocket.
Beynon explained that Jafar had finished his
PhD at the same Physics and Astronomy Department four years ago, and had made a
lasting impression with his completion of a PhD thesis in minimum time. The subject? Strong nuclear interactions.
A
year later, Jafar, who was at that time was the head of the Physics Department
at the Nuclear Research Institute and a member of the top level Iraqi Atomic Energy
Commission, was offered a job at the Physics Department at the University of
Birmingham, by Professor Burcham, the Head of the
Physics and Astronomy Department.
Jafar
instead returned to
Khadduri
was quickly accepted into the
Four
Iraqi students were enrolled for the Reactor Technology Masters course in 1969:
Tariq al-Hamami, Abdallah Kendoush, Riyadh Yahya Zaki
and Khadduri, all on Iraqi government scholarships.
Khadduri
wound up the sole choice of the university to continue on to a PhD, which he
earned in December 1973.
Peaceful
nuclear research
Khadduri
then rejoined the
On
the same day, Khalid Said, a PhD physicist who had studied in the England, had
also started his work there and was immediately assigned to be the head of the
Nuclear Research Center, reportedly due to his prominent Ba’athist
status.
Khadduri
had severed his own party connection in 1962.
Muyasser al-Mallah,
a fellow
Eager
to focus on research rather than administration, Khadduri joined Mansoor Ammar and Muqdam Ali in the Reactor Department.
It
was at a scientific conference later that year (1974) that Khadduri would
discover the detectors he worked on in
He
immediately proposed a project to search for uranium in
Khalid
Said approved, and provided Omran Mousa -a "faithful and devoted"
driver, a vehicle, communication equipment, official papers, soldiers and
finance.
A
Bedouin guide later joined the entourage, as it ventured into more remote
terrain.
Searching
for uranium in the mountains
Khadduri began his search in the northeast mountains near the Iranian border, close to a Kurdish village called Hero.
"I
would have 50 soldiers spread around in a circular formation, with me at the
center, fanning along with me as I planted the [detectors]," he recalls.
"The yellow uranium ore was even visible on the surface."
The
group then headed south and spent several months in the barren desert of Jil, on the Iraqi-Saudi border Siroor
Mirza, the head of the geology department at the Nuclear Research Institute,
accompanied Khadduri’s entourage and provided
detailed maps indicating possible uranium deposits in the middle of the desert.
Later, near the city of al-Qaim near the Syrian
border Khadduri and company "struck it rich."
The
results of preliminary tests indicated heavy uranium concentrations near an
area called Akashat.
A
city then arose around a phosphate production plant that was built there.
One
of the plant’s buildings was for the extraction of uranium ore in the form of
yellowcake.
"The
extracted by-product would later be transported by rail north to the al-Jazeera nuclear site, near
There,
a processing plant was located, which required yellowcake as feed material in
order to produce pure nuclear grade uranium dioxide, which in turn was
chlorinated to produce uranium tetrachloride.
This
was the "feed material" for the "Baghdatrons"
-a name derived from Calutron (which in turn derives from the contraction of
The
"Baghdatrons" were central parts of a
machine process used primarily for production of
Many
months later, Khadduri returned to the
Jafar
returns
At
the urging of Khalid Said, Khadduri wrote a letter to Jafar Dhia Jafar, urging
him to return to
Jafar
was still working in
He
agreed to quit his post at CERN, return to
The
first Iraqi International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy was
held in
Khadduri,
who was in charge of the reactor technology sector, oversaw the evaluation of
the submitted papers and allotted the time for them.
His
attention was immediately drawn to Yehya al-Meshad,
Egyptian nuclear reactor scientist, whose expertise in nuclear reactor
technology and gift for expressing complex principles with clarity was
evidenced in ten papers submitted for the conference.
Al-Meshad was on sabbatical leave from
He
subsequently won a 2-year contract, which ended in1977 -at which point he was
hired by the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission and became a prime mover in the
program.
Meanwhile,
Malcolm Scott suggested that the Iraqis start a one-year Reactor Technology
Master of Science course based on the material that he had developed for his
course at
Scott
said that he would be willing to accept any graduate student of the course, for
a PhD program at
Coordinating
with the
"The
students were completely under our guidance at the Nuclear Research Institute,
but their degrees would be conferred by the Physics Department at the
Dabbling
with critical mass
"I
also engaged [al-Meshad] in developing a computer
program, or code, to calculate the burn-up of the reactor’s nuclear fuel
instead of depending on the simplified hand calculated formulas that were left
to us by the Russians," Khadduri said.
"Our
code and calculations opened up the possibility of calculating critical mass,
the correct density at which a highly enriched uranium 235 sphere would undergo
a self-sustaining chain reaction; this could become a reactor, if controlled,
and an atomic bomb, if uncontrolled."
The
duo’s work on code yielded yet another co-authored report: CORELOAD: A Computer Code for Calculating the Evolution of the
Operation History of the IRT-2000 Reactor.
Khalid
Said and Jafar Dhia Jafar were supportive of the efforts.
Implosion
scenarios
Khadduri
and Yehya al-Meshad also started dabbling with
different "implosion scenarios" that would start with a smaller
spherical sphere of uranium but would increase its density to a critical value.
"This
fissioning process is rapidly repeated, in a very
short time, in a self-sustained chain reaction. The bomb explodes, releasing
intense amounts of energy and radioactive fission products, "said
Khadduri.
Khadduri’s and al-Meshad’s
calculations matched the experimental results carried out in the forties for
the Manhattan Project, and were then written up in report No. NR-14: The Use
of Multigroup Transport Method for Criticality
Calculations of Some Fast Spherical Assemblies.
Plutonium
239
Having
mastered the tools for calculating the burn-up rate of the nuclear fuel in the
reactor Jafar and Khadduri then jointly carry out a detailed calculation on the
possible production of weapons grade fissionable plutonium 239 from the
operation of the Russian reactor’s fuel –"a long shot" according to
Khadduri.
Plutonium
239 constitutes the core of another type of atomic bomb.
"With
our low power research reactor, it would have taken decades to obtain the required
amount of nuclear weapon grade plutonium," states Khadduri, "The
relevance of the work, however, was the knowledge of the required
calculations."
Those
calculations would form yet another Khadduri nuclear report: The Possible Production of Pu239 from
the IRT-5000 Reactor, co-authored with Jafar.
Power generating plant
The
Iraqi team visited several nuclear power plants in
Khadduri
was part of the team that met with and negotiated with the suppliers’
delegations.
Negotiations
with Mitsubishi at their headquarters in
"We
were nearing the end of it, when…Mr. Ito, the head of the Japanese delegation,
excused himself after [someone whispered] in his ear. He went out for five
minutes, and returned to declare the end of the negotiations," said
Khadduri.
Westinghouse,
American supplier for nuclear fuel for most Western and Japanese nuclear power
stations, had just called to refuse supply of nuclear fuel to
The
scientists would soon head to
Photos
copyrighted and supplied by Dr. Imad Khadduri
Next
up - Part 2: Assasination in
*
* * * * *
Note:
Dr. Khadduri's new book, titled Iraq's Nuclear
Mirage: Memoirs and Delusions should be available in American
bookstores at the end of December.
The
author has agreed to ship copies out himself to Etherzone
readers who want to obtain a copy of the book now. Signed copies are also
available and inquiries should be directed to Dr. Khadduri via his website: Iraq’s Nuclear Mirage.
Part
2: Hurtling towards the bomb
Author’s
Note:
The
debate over
Dr.
Imad Khadduri was a top scientist involved in Iraq's nuclear program from 1968
until the end of 1998, when he was able to escape. He now serves as a network
administrator in
In
1974, a top level Iraqi government delegation, lead by Saddam Hussein, arrived
in
The
delegation was headed by Abdul Razzak al-Sashimi
(known as Chouqi) and consisted of Jafar Dhia
Jafar, Hussain al-Sharastani and Humam Abdul Khaliq
Al-Sharastani, a prominent chemist, was later tortured,
jailed, and pressured to help build an Iraqi nuclear bomb. He managed to escape
from
Abdul
Razzak al-Hashimi was nicknamed Chouqi,
because of his propensity for generating sheer chaos. The term is a derivative
of the slang Chouqqa, which refers to a large
’breaker’ marble used to ‘shoot’ and scatter smaller marbles in every
direction.
An
entourage of Iraqi chefs and special firewood were flown to
The
visit became known as the "Masgoof Visit."
By
1976, a $300 million deal had been completed for two reactors—one a 40 Megawatt
(MW) reactor that the French dubbed OSIRIS and a smaller reactor called
OSIRIS
was a relatively large research reactor and
The
designs for the reactors were to be prepared at Saclay
Nuclear Research Institute near
The
French later referred to the entire project as OSIRAK.
The
training for the operation of the two reactors (and on the six experimental
rigs that were the prime reason for buying them), was to be held at
Mahdi
Shukur Ghali Obeidi, a solid state materials scientist, was in charge of
putting together the scientific and engineering team. In early 1980, about 60
scientists, engineers and technicians were sent to the research center at Saclay to take an accelerated French language course
followed by a year of training on the operation of the two reactors and the six
experimental rigs.
Mahdi
was later assigned to head the centrifugal enrichment process team in the
eighties. This is the same Mahdi Obeidi, who at the
end of June 2003, led Americans troops to some hidden documents and centrifugal
parts buried under a rosebush in his back yard. Little media
play was given in the US to Obeidi’s accompanying
statement indicating Iraq had not rebuilt its nuclear weapons program after
1991.
In
The
French had suddenly switched the type of the nuclear fuel that would be used in
the two reactors. Instead of the 80% enriched cylindrical elements, specified
three years earlier in the purchase contract, the Iraqis were stunned to hear
they would instead be getting an 18% "caramel" type fuel.
In
fact as soon as the initial contract had been signed, the French immediately
started to design the 18% ‘caramel’ fuel.
The
low enriched "caramel" fuel was designed solely for the
Assasination in
"The
Mossad, smashed Yehya’s
head with a copper rod as he entered his hotel room in
"The
only witness, a French woman, was ‘mysteriously’ run over by a car and killed a
few days later. "
The
date was June 13, 1980.
Adding
to the mounting difficulties, Khadduri had criticized some of the Ba’ath party
team members for their incompetence.
His
criticism soon reached
Khadduri
was ordered to return to
It
was the first of several clashes between Khadduri and Saddam’s
political-military -intelligence network, which would eventually make Khadduri’s escape from
Basil
al-Saati along with a few loyal party members escorted Khadduri, his wife, and
their three-month old daughter Y to the airport, following at close range in
order to prevent any defection.
Khadduri
returned to the
Not
one to waste time, he started translating it into Arabic.
Khadduri
continued this self-imposed intellectual regimen until what he calls the
"genuine start" of the Iraqi nuclear weapons program, which he dates
to September 3, 1981.
Towards
the Nuclear bomb
In
early 1981, unknown to Khadduri at the time, events were already in motion
behind the scenes concerning the "fumbling goal" of obtaining a
nuclear bomb, even as the Iraqi government began harassing some of the
country’s top scientists.
Hussain
al-Shahrastani, the brilliant chemist who went to
After
Hussain’s arrest, Jafar appealed to Chouqi in his defense.
True
to his nickname, Chouqi then rushed to Saddam and
made false accusations against Jafar.
Saddam
ordered the house arrest of Jafar in January 1980
In
1981, after hearing of Jafar’s arrest, Khadduri began
to visit and comfort Jafar’s distraught mother. She
had been confiding in Khadduri’s father, who was her
medical doctor.
Humam
Abdul Khaliq, head of the Iraqi Atomic Energy
Commission, called Khadduri to his office: "If you do not stop visiting Jafar’s mother, they will fry onions on your ass", he
warned.
Khadduri
disregarded the warning.
Years
of Iraqi scientific endeavor came to an end on the evening of June 7, 1981 when
"We
heard the blasts and ran to the rooftops. We could see the cloud plumes even
tens of kilometers away," Khadduri recalls, calling the act
"belligerent."
He
describes
Hurtling
towards the bomb
Saddam
took the political decision to initiate a full-fledged weapons program
immediately afterwards, according to Khadduri.
This
meant the dispersed team had to be resurrected and reunited.
Jafar
had to be released from jail. Chafing and humiliated from the experience, Jafar
was slow to agree to the plan.
"I
believe that he wrote, while still interned, several technical reports on the
matter to Saddam to that effect," Khadduri said.
Jafar
was then released and arrived at the
Khadduri
was soon called for, leaving his library sanctuary behind.
Basil
al-Qaisy , (Khadduri’s
childhood friend who had initially invited him into the atomic program,) Munqith al-Qaisy, Munqith al-Bakir, Zuhair
al-Chalabi, Nabil Karnik, Imad Ilyia
and a few others were called into a meeting with Jafar.
"Department
3000"
At
first, the secret organization that Jafar set up for the nuclear weapons
program was called "Department 3000, Research and Development."
All
the departments were still carrying on with peaceful nuclear research under the
watchful eyes of the IAEA -except for Department 3000.
Covert
purchases, overt gleaning
Advancement
was fueled by an abundance of publicly available American research materials
and the ease with which covert procurements were made.
He
also cut a deal on the west coast to obtain two lasers needed for experiments
in uranium enrichment.
The
lasers were picked up at the
Khadduri
soon moved to a small planning group that was working directly with Jafar on
the nuclear weapons program
Part
of the planning was the assignment of scientists and engineers to attend
relevant and worthwhile conferences and symposiums abroad in order obtain
needed information.
At
the end of 1983, he was transferred to the nuclear electric power plant project,
which was put on a higher priority level, under the direction of Khalid Said.
In
the winter of 1987, Khadduri attended a high-level meeting chaired by Humam
Abdul Khaliq, the Head of the Iraqi Atomic Energy
Commission, in which the top priorities were outlined.
Khadduri
left the meeting with the realization that the nuclear electric power plant
project was no longer a priority and was instead to become a façade for the
IAEA to focus on and follow, while the real nuclear weapons program would
remain undetected, advancing rapidly.
"What
had actually transpired at the time was a crucial turning point in the Iraqi
nuclear weapons program. I was not aware then of a shake up that happened
behind the scenes," Khadduri recalls.
The
secret PC3
The
shake up was instigated by a letter by Khidir Hamza
sent early in 1987 to Saddam Hussein.
Khadduri
notes that Khidir Hamza, referred to in the west by
his self-given title, "Saddam’s Bomb Maker," had either failed in his
assignment to make progress with the gaseous diffusion enrichment process or
had coveted Jafar’s position as head of the program.
Khadduri leans towards the former theory, noting Hamza’a
alleged lack of leadership skills.
"He
was a loner, only adept at working on his theoretical ‘three-body’ problem for
more than two decades. He did not have the charisma or the courage to lead a
team. His distaste of any experimental scientific work provided a focal point
for many humorous puns."
Hamza
had written an inflammatory report to Saddam Hussein accusing Jafar of
procrastination and wasting resources.
Saddam
was furious and demanded an explanation.
Jafar’s administrative load was soon
lightened with the arrival of Dhafir Selbi, the previous head of the
administration department at the Nuclear Research center, and an old high
school friend of Khadduri’s.
Selbi
had been asked to join the top management team of the nuclear weapons program,
and he soon transformed the program by a thorough restructuring.
Selbi,
who refers to himself now simply as "Haj, visitor
to
breakthrough his "brainchild" and
"Perestroika."
Selbi
used zumras,
an Arabic metaphor for "teams" that would be comprised of engineers
and scientists, delegated by their various scientific and engineering
departments, to tackle specific design proposals.
Khadduri
and Selbi explained that the zumra would work through and
materialize the designs through collective interactive thought encompassing all
related scientific and engineering activities.
This
was in radical contrast to the previous mode of work where the design was put
forth by one department, then shuffled back and forth between the various
groups who would just attach their notes individually, with no significant
interaction.
The
nuclear weapons project in its entirety came to be known as the Petrochemical 3
(PC3) project and in the summer of 1987, replacing "Department 3000."
The
resulting restructuring resulted in the following organization of the nuclear
program:
Group
1: The
centrifugal enrichment process, which was assigned to Mahdi Shukur
Ghali Obeidi. Several
months later, Hussein Kamel, Saddam’s son-in-law,
took direct responsibility for that group.
Group
2: The PIG and
TIG enrichment processes was assigned to Jafar Dhia Jafar. [PIG and TIG would
soon to be dropped and replaced by the Electromagnetic
Isotope Separation (EMIS) enrichment process per Dhafir Selbi.
Group
3: The
"administrative support" group that would lighten Jafar’s
administrative chores was assigned to Dhafir Selbi. This group was responsible
for covert purchasing, the provision of scientific and engineering information,
the documentation of the scientific reports, the
mechanical and electrical manufacturing activities and in a later stage the
supervision of their design activities. Khadduri was incorporated into that
group in September of that year, 1987.
Group
4: Khidir Hamza was asked to drop the diffusion process and
was assigned to gather a team for the design of the nuclear bomb. However,
Khadduri reports that Hamza was soon kicked out after a few months and the
nuclear weapon design group was assigned instead to Khalid Said.
As
previously reported by WND and Newsweek, United Nations documents
recording the debriefing of Hussein Kamel in Jordan
in 1995 quote him referring to Hamza as a "professional liar."
Said
Kamal, "He worked with us, but he was useless and was always looking for
promotions. He consulted with me but could not deliver anything."
The
same document indicates the UN concluded a document produced by Hamza was a
fake.
Khadduri
said, "There is not a single documented scientific report of any work by Khidir Hamza relating to critical mass or a nuclear bomb in
the archive of the
Hamza’s testimony to Congress on
Hussein
Kamel takes charge
In
October 1987,Saddam appointed Hussein Kamel, who was already the Head of the Military
Industrialization Corporation (MIC) to be in charge of Groups 2, 3, and 4.
In
addition, Kamel took a direct and separate leadership
of Group 1 that was distanced from Groups 2, 3 and 4. Group 1 was to work on
the centrifuge enrichment process under the continued direction of Mahdi Shukur Ghali Obeidi.
The
activities of these four groups would be made completely invisible from the
International Atomic Energy Agency.
In
January 1989, PC3 was established within the Ministry of Industry and Military
Industrialization (MIMI) under Hussein Kamel and
included the whole of the Iraqi national nuclear program (enrichment and
weapons). Petrochemical 1 and Petrochemical 2 were established large-scale
refinery projects undertaken by MIMI during the eighties.
"In
contrast to Khidir Hamza’s
false claims, Jafar Dhia Jafar, Humam Abdul Khaliq
and Dhafir Selbi, were, in my opinion, the true dynamic prime movers of the
nuclear weapons program," Khadduri said.
In
1987, with Khidir Hamza kicked out of the role of the
head of the weapon design team, Khalid Said took over the role.
Dr.
Said won't be giving any testimony now about the nuclear program though. He
died in a hail of bullets after he failed to stop fast enough at an American
checkpoint in
Meanwhile,
Dr. Hamza is currently working for the
"Activity
3W"
Dhafir
Selbi cancelled the work on PIG and TIG enrichment research, deciding that the
Electromagnetic Isotope Separation (EMIS) method that employed huge magnets,
referred to as Calutrons (or Baghdatrons)
was the best approach.
The
EMIS method was implemented during the World War II in the Manhattan Project to
produce the first American atomic bombs that were dropped on
The
decision was made to go forward with the enrichment process as fast as
possible.
Dhafir
called for Khadduri the following day. "Jafar’s
scientists are not doing their abc’s
of scientific research," he complained. "They are tiring a bit after
six years and are not properly researching published articles on their new assignment.
I want you to flood them with proper scientific and engineering information. I
also want you to take hold again of the documentation procedure. The scientific
quality of some of our reports that I have seen should have been thoroughly
reviewed and reworked before being approved and distributed." He assigned
Khaddar one employee, Khawla. Khadduri then added
Salam Toma, a close friend, to his team. Khadduri now headed Dhafir’s Activity 3W, in Group 3, labeled Information and
Documentation.
Information
avalanche
Khadduri
immediately headed to the large research library of the Iraqi Atomic Energy
Commission.
He
soon found the complete set of the
Khadduri
quickly set about pouring over the yearly indexes of the NSA trove, searching
for certain keywords: critical mass, Manhattan Project, Calutron, critical
assemblies.
Salam
Toma and Khawla went to work digging through the
volumes.
Two
weeks later, they brought had compiled more than fifty pages of relevant
citations.
How
many of the cited works were already present in the library?
Almost
all -ninety six percent.
In
one dusty box that had not opened since the sixties Khadduri found the
Manhattan Project books and reports.
Over
160 patents related to the Manhattan Project, were then obtained from the World
Intellectual Property Organization in
"It
probably cost us no more than $100," he remarked.
Next
came the hunt for a microcard
reader.
Some
of the key documents were on microcard, a predecessor
of the microfiche and the microfilm.
One
crucial and important report, TID 5232 in Division 1,Volume
12 on the "Chemical Processing Equipment: Electromagnetic Separation
Process" was on one of these microcards.
"Dhafir
instructed me to find, hell or heaven, a microcard
reader that can print the images, thirty years after the demise of that
technology," said Khadduri.
An
Egyptian in
Due
to Khadduri‘s efforts, four months later, by the end
of 1987 the scientists and engineers had their hands full of critical
scientific information on the Calutron process.
They
quickly set to work on the "Baghdatron."
It
was just the beginning of the information avalanche though.
Since
the mid-seventies, Khadduri had been in charge of accessing Dialog -the world’s
first online information retrieval system - from the
Khadduri
used a special small isolated room on the outskirts of the
Some
obstacles still stood in the way. First, it was expensive to have an open line
from
A
station was set up in
In
order to secure the supply of special books, reports and hard-to-get articles,
Khadduri saw to it that several accounts were opened with various information
suppliers. These included the British Lending Library, the
A
positive report was submitted by Jafar in the summer of 1990 to Hussein Kamel on the remarkable progress Khadduri’s
team made in securing, organizing and disseminating large amounts of critical
nuclear information .
Jafar
proposed to make the benefits of Khadduri’s research
and archiving activities widely available.
Hussein
Kamal approved of the idea and ordered Khadduri’s
department to go public, and serve all Iraqi ministries, research centers and
universities, free of charge.
It
was the first department from PC3 to become public. The new name of Khadduri’s enterprise was the "Center for Specialized
Information," part of the Ministry of Industry.
Notra Trulock III, knows all too well the pivotal role dissemination of
American scientific data played in the Iraqi nuclear weapons program. Trulock is the former director of intelligence for the
Department of Energy (DOE) in the
According
to Trulock the best reports on the Iraqi’s
exploitation of US nuclear weapons secrets were done within the DOE, but were
suppressed by the department’s arms controllers and have never seen the light
of day.
"I
had a bootleg copy of one such report on the Iraqis’ acquisition of nuclear
information from the national labs, but I was never able to get it widely
distributed to the intelligence community," said Trulock.
An Energy Department intelligence officer told Trulock
that all existing copies of the report were destroyed after he left the
department.
Documentation
Khadduri
had also been set to work on proper documentation of the activities of PC3.
This
included insuring the scientific quality of research reports, and documenting
reports submitted by scientists and engineers after returning from abroad to
attend scientific conferences.
It
also included documenting covert purchases.
The
originals were kept in Building 61 at the Nuclear Research Center, which was
the Electronics Department under Basil al-Qaisi, Khadduri‘s childhood friend who had invited him into the
nuclear program in 1968.
The
second set was at the Trade Union building in front of al-Rasheed Hotel, the
location that was targeted by David Kay in September 1991.
The
third location was al-Hayat building, an intelligence
adjunct near the presidential palace. Hamid and a staff of ten worked in the
basement of building 61, to maintain the records, making microfilm copies of
the engineering drawings and producing the required number of copies of the
reports to be distributed to scientists and engineers.
Soon,
the storm clouds of war were gathering, and Khadduri’s
team rushed to copy the nuclear program reports onto optical disks and find an
appropriate place to hide the originals.
Next Up - Part III: War, reconstruction and escape.
Part
3: The gathering storm
Author’s
Note:
The
debate over
Dr.
Imad Khadduri was a top scientist involved in Iraq's nuclear program from 1968
until the end of 1998, when he was able to escape. He now serves as a network
administrator in
As
the threat of Gulf War I approached, Khadduri and his staff hurriedly set about
storing and hiding the documents of the nuclear program.
In
early 1990, Khadduri chose Canon’s new CanoFile 150
as the means of duplication - a scanning machine that could capture and store
the image of both sides of a scanned document on a high-capacity
magneto-optical disc.
Khadduri
ordered two along with five empty disks. Canon’s representative offered the
sixth disk, which Khadduri kept for backup and which later play a critical part
in hiding documents from UN inspectors after Gulf War I.
The
first CanoFile was shipped out of
With
both devices ready, and with war approaching, the whole documentation staff set
to work scanning and saving the 1600 reports that represented ten years of work
and development.
Khadduri
saw to it that the scanned documents were properly indexed.
Hiding
nuclear documents
Salam
and Khadduri then went to the bazaar near al-Mustansiryah
Street and bought three large aluminum trunks to place the records in. A nearby
German-built secondary technical school was chosen as the hiding place.
Inside
the school they found the ideal hiding location: a windowless room that could
only be accessed by going through two other rooms.
This
became the place where the reports of the Iraqi nuclear weapons program were
hidden.
Not
trusting intelligence and security staff, Khadduri recommended Selbi not let
them know the location of the trunks. Selbi agreed.
Salam
and Khadduri then carried out the delivery of the trunks alone.
Heavy
locks were installed in all three rooms.
Dhafir
got a set of keys, and Salam and Khadduri kept the only other two sets.
Khadduri
also kept the magneto-optical disks that stored the 1600 reports of the secret
PC3 program.
A
week later, an enraged Khadduri found a cardboard carton belatedly dumped on
his desk with reports from Khalid Said’s Group 4.
Said had stubbornly refused to adhere to Khadduri’s
strict documentation and indexing procedures, and had been allowed to make his
own arrangements, but had apparently failed to do so.
It
was too late to properly index the papers with those already locked away in the
aluminum trunks. Beside himself with anger, Khadduri sent Salam to take the
carton to the technical school. An upset Salam, just
left the cardboard box atop the trunks.
One
year later, David Kay would find the cardboard box, which would result on the
destruction of the al-Athir site by UNSCOM
inspectors.
In
the autumn of 1990, the research gurus of Khadduri’s
Center for Specialized Information set up shop at on the mezzanine floor of the
Ministry of Industry.
His
deputy at department 3W, Mashkoor Haidar,
took over the documentation responsibility for PC3. Mashkoor
and the staff of the documentation group in turn answered to Adil Fiadh.
Khadduri
handed Mashkoor the keys to the three rooms where the
aluminum trunks were stored, but kept the magneto-optical disks.
Jafar
demanded that Khadduri also hand over the disks to Abdul Halim
al-Hajjaj, Khalid Said’s
associate.
Khadduri
strongly objected, not trusting anyone else to keep the data secure, but Jafar
insisted.
"With
a broken heart, and spirit, I handed over the three full magneto optical disks
to Halim," he said.
Jafar
was still looking for them seven years later.
The
gathering storm
With
Gulf War I hovering on the horizon, Khadduri, along with other select
scientists and executive members of the management team were assigned alternate
living quarters in the event of attack.
Khadduri
took his family to the city of
Khadduri
heard that not a single foreigner was employed in the construction due to its
secrecy.
"Most
of the portable trays of microfiche and catalogues were taken to our homes. We
dispersed the racks of microfilms in different locations so as not to suffer
from a single hit," Khadduri said, "At home, personal suitcases were
prepared, official personal
papers gathered and dozens of batteries were
purchased," he recalls.
At
dawn, with electricity and telephone systems down the Khadduri family packed
the two cars; Niran’s and Imad’s government assigned
one, and then drove off to Sharqat with his mother and Lisa, their dog.
Khadduri
recalls worrying about whether American "smart bombs" might
accidentally target and breach the Russian reactor at Tuwaitha, releasing
devastating radioactivity.
Bombs
did fall on Tuwaitha while the reactor was still operational, Khadduri says.
"The
operators first fled the building when the bombs first fell close to them but
then returned, shut down the reactor and put a steel cover over the open pool
as the bombs exploded tens of meters from the building. Fortunately, that steel
cover was not breached neither was the concrete containment of the reactor
holding the water that cooled the reactor."
The
Iraqi nuclear weapons program stopped dead in its tracks that morning, and was
never rejuvenated, Khadduri said.
How
close was
Khadduri’s summary:
"In
total, we were, in my estimate, about 10-20 percent of where we should have
been had
Through
the war
The
Khadduri’s temporary home shook from shock waves that
they attributed to ammunition depots exploding miles away.
His
family made frequent use of a crude underground shelter that they dug in front
of the house.
Intermingled
with the hard times the scientist recalls fond memories:
Dhafir and his two brothers cooking fish, Masgoof
style, in front of their house as war planes flew overhead and bombs exploded
in the distance; Niran and Imad spending evenings playing cards with the
families of Sabah Abdul Noor and Mahir Sarsam, two senior scientists from Group
4 of the PC3 nuclear project.
Late
at night, Khadduri recalls, they would walk home with a lantern, shooing away
stray dogs.
Khadduri’s family also received news of war
casualties. A housing complex belonging to al-Badir
electrical establishment, south of Sharqat near Samara, was bombed by with a
reported 50 women and children killed. Similar news reached them of more
civilian casualties in an attack on the Ishtar housing complex near the
Rebellion
against Saddam
During
the war, Khadduri ventured into
Khadduri,
fearing a violent reaction of the Iraqi people to "our abject
defeat," whispered to Sarsam, "Allah Yustir
(God protect us)!"
"Little
had I known of the
"Only
a year or two later did I learn of the extent of the brutal repression
inflicted by the Ba’athist stalwarts on the revolting
people, the heroic popular extent of the uprising, the extensive damage to the
holy Moslem shrines in Karbala and al-Najjaf and the
horrendous mass grave yards. "
Khadduri
and his friends also heard of anger at the Americans who had allowed the
helicopters of the Republican Guards to fly freely and participate in the
repression.
"The
Kurds in the North, like the Arabs in the South, had naively believed Bush
senior’s call for an uprising, only to be let down, left unaided and be
slaughtered," Khadduri recalls.
"Coming
down from Sharqat, we saw some of the Republican Army’s modern tanks heading
north, unhindered, to quell the Kurdish uprising."
Seeing
the failure of the uprisings, and fearing a strengthened Saddam, Khadduri moved
swiftly to obtain up-to-date passports for his wife and children.
Khadduri
himself was forbidden to obtain a passport, since he was part of the nuclear
team. The only exceptions were for official business as approved by the
Intelligence Agency.
It
was the first step in a long and arduous ordeal of secretly escaping from
In
the meantime, numerous attempts to retire from government service were rejected
by the Iraqi government.
Rebuilding
Extensive
damage to the Iraqi infrastructure and subsequent rebuilding would occupy the
nuclear scientists and engineers for years.
During
the war, Khadduri learned
A
week after the war ended, Jafar gave Khadduri his first post-war assignment.
He
was to convene an Electricity Rehabilitation Symposium in
A
third of
Passing
along a highway south of Sharqat during the war, Khadduri remembers seeing miles-high
walls of fire from spilled oil engulfing the Baiji
oil refinery plant.
Khadduri
along with other nuclear scientists and engineers later supervised the
rebuilding of oil refineries, which were up and running again within a few
months as well.
In
the summer of 1991, as the telecommunications infrastructure was being
repaired, Khadduri undertook an enterprise of his own initiative: networking
all of the research centers and universities throughout
Over
a period of two years, Khadduri and Ayad Muhaimid
used external Hayes modems, to network about sixty research centers and
universities with a telephone dial-up service allowing them access to the many
databases on CD-ROMs that were located at the Center for Specialized
Information in the Ministry of Industry in Baghdad.
Khadduri’s research center back in business
At
the same time the electrical symposium was held, one week after the war ended,
work had resumed at the Center for Specialized Information.
Khadduri’s center had accumulated about twenty
scientific and engineering databases, including all five million
Additional
holdings included PhD theses abstracts extending back to 1864, and the
microfilm ‘treasure" of industrial and US military standards and
industrial catalogues.
"Within
a few months after the war, we would normally open our offices at eight in the
morning to a waiting line of twenty to thirty government engineers, students
and university researchers eager to get information, for free, for the
rehabilitation of their sectors or for writing their theses," Khadduri
said.
The
center’s staff also wrote their own computer program to distribute their
monthly salaries: "The department responsible for that in the now slowly
disintegrating PC3 was incapable of running their own program on the relocated
and dismembered mainframe computer," Khadduri explains.
Prison
and interrogation
As
the UN inspectors were beginning to arrive, a memo was written in April/May
1991 by Jafar Dhia Jafar and Naman al-Niami, a top level chemist in the nuclear weapons program,
to Hussain Kamal, outlining all of the nuclear sites.
The
list was submitted before the adoption of Resolution 687 (1991) by the United
Nations Security Council. Kamal ordered the disclosure of selected activities
and sites and the concealment of the others from the list – notably the al-Athir weapon design center and its activities.
Nuclear
scientists and engineers went to Jafar to ask for access to their reports to
aid in the UN interviewing process.
Jafar,
at that time, was appointed Head of the MIC, under Hussain Kamal’s
authority, in return for having led the successful rebuilding of the
electricity sector.
Jafar
decided to hand over the contents of one documentation center to the UN
inspectors. These encompassed the reports of the declared activities only.
In
late summer of 1991, Jafar then gave a "fatal order" to Adil Fiadh to retrieve the hidden documents and reports.
All
of the documents that had been hidden in the technical school, had been placed
in a train wagon -its doors then welded shut- that kept shuttling between Basra
in the south and Mosul in the north.
After
Jafar’s order went out to return the documents, the
train car was halted and the welded doors pried open. The aluminum trunks,
boxes of microfiche of design drawings and the cardboard box containing the
reports of the undeclared activities of Group 4 (that were dumped on Khadduri‘s desk at the last minute) were all returned to
the documentation center at the Labor Union building, next to the MIC building.
"Within
a few days later, the UN inspector David Kay and his colleagues unexpectedly
raided the Labor Union building and retrieved the documents, including the
cardboard box, leading to heated verbal exchanges and face-to- face
confrontation between David Kay and Jafar, which was videotaped and
broadcast," Khadduri recounts.
"A
week later, the inspectors raided the
Hussain
Kamel suspected a security leak, and immediately
ordered the arrest of about twelve people connected with documentation,
including Adil Fiadh, Mashkoor
Haidar, and Khadduri.
They
were individually interrogated by a committee headed by the Deputy Head of MIC,
Amer al-Ubaidi -who later became the Oil Minister in
1996 and was captured by US forces in May 2003.
The
group was incarcerated incommunicado for eighteen days at the Fao Establishment building on
"Some
of the interned suffered psychologically, broke down and cried heavily,
realizing that our lives were at the whim of Hussain Kamel’s
mood," Khadduri recalls.
After
concluding that no security breach had occurred, the interned were released
after being demoted, Khalid Said included.
Jafar
was removed as director of MIC with Amer al-Ubaidi
taking over the past. Jafar then became "scientific advisor" to the
palace court of Saddam (an insignificant post) and took on full responsibility
for the continued rehabilitation of the electricity sector.
"Jafar
also dabbled in fanciful irrigation projects to divert water from the Tigris
near
Meanwhile
back at Khadduri’s research center, he was made aware
of the activities of PC3 and some military activities of the MIC, since the
researchers had to go past him in order to access databases of the
Khadduri
was in that post until 1994 when he left for the Foreign Ministry.
Ever
since his imprisonment, Khadduri was kept under innervating, close surveillance
by Saddam‘s intelligence agencies. Some friends risked their own safety by
telling Khadduri they had been approached to give information on the scientist.
The constant watching and the pressure put on his friends would soon send
Khadduri spiraling into anxiety and depression.
The
6th disk: scientific innuendo
Meanwhile,
Jafar contacted Khadduri, asking for his help in storing highly sensitive
documents he kept at his home. David Kay’s searches were worrying Jafar.
Khadduri
had stored one of the CanoFiles at his home, and had
kept the complimentary sixth disk which had been given by Canon has part of the
initial purchase deal. He set to work storing and archiving Jafar’s
highly sensitive documents.
"I
glimpsed the monitor, whenever I had the chance, to see what was being
archived," Khadduri recalls, "I was not that pleased with some of it.
It was plainly a blatant exaggeration, or promising extrapolation, of what we
were achieving using the Baghdatrons in 1990, signed
by Jafar and presented by Hussain Kamal to Saddem. It
would have been misleading as to the true progress of the work, if you do not
grasp scientific innuendo. "
After
5 hours, Jafar’s trusted driver Omran, (the same
driver who accompanied Khadduri on his uranium searches) left with a filled
magneto-optical disk and the box of documents.
Meanwhile
the IAEA was singly concerned with Group 4’s activities that entailed the
design of the bomb, and did not ask for or show interest in the uranium
enrichment activities of PC3.
The
copied magneto-optical disc of Group 4’s activities was handed over to them.
Says
Khadduri, " I am not sure whether they knew of,
or even now have, the other two discs."
Those
two disks contained the images of the rest of PC3’s reports, that Khadduri had
kept separate from the cache that was found by David Kay in September 1991. It
was these disks that Khadduri had objected to handing over to Abdul Halim al-Hajjaj, Khalid Said’s associate.
Into
"
Following
the prior imprisonment and interrogation, Khadduri soon found intelligence
services had sent a plant to work at his research center.
False
accusations followed and Khadduri found himself
increasingly harassed.
Enter
Mohammad al-Sahhaf, the Foreign Minister at the time,
and the famed Information Minister ("Baghdad Bob") during the 2003
war.
Al-Sahhaf wanted Khadduri to bring his expertise to the
Foreign Ministry with the goal of networking its departments, and creating an
efficient electronic management of the ministry’s daily communications, as well
as archiving its historical files.
Within
a period of three years, the project was completed, and the new computer center
was staffed by five people.
Khadduri’s staff trained about 250 diplomats on
the use of word processing.
Butting heads with a "rabid" intelligence
officer
Khadduri,
ever more eager to get his family out of
The
controversy began when "Baghdad Bob" appoved
Khadduri’s idea to assign 80 diplomats, including 5
intelligence officers, a mundane typing assignment: compiling electoral lists
for a 1995 parliament election.
The
80 had just graduated from a word processing class, and there was little time
to compile the task.
When
Khadduri told al-Sahhaf about 5 intelligence officers
who had not accepted their assignments, he was angry.
"The
Intelligence bastards" al-Sahhaf shouted,
picking up the phone.
Intelligence
officer Salah Abdul Rahman al-Hadithi
was indignant over receiving the pedestrian typing assignment. "I retorted
with a quote from Saddam that curtly shut him up," Khadduri said.
Three
years later, Khadduri found out the intelligence officer had immediately filed a
report to Saddam, detailing how Khadduri’s name was
mentioned in a New York Times article, as having a possible connection
to the Israeli Mossad. Ever since the officer filed
the vengeful report, Khadduri had been under additional secret investigation.
The
report also referred to al-Sahhaf’s attempt to secure
a diplomatic post for Khadduri abroad. Al-Sahhaf had
been sensitive to Khadduri’s desire to get his family
out of
In
the intelligence file however, Saddam had scribbled in red ink that Khadduri
"shall not see the Iraqi border" in his lifetime.
Planning
escape
Within
a few years after the end of the 1991 war, Niran, Khadduri’s
wife, noticed that colleagues at the private al-Mansoor
University College, where she was teaching computer languages, were
disappearing - escaping Iraq, legally or illegally, including Khidir Hamza who lectured there.
It
was after the sudden and unexpected 1994 disappearance of Niran Khadduri' close
friend, Samira Katoola and her husband Tawfiq, both
former Atomic Energy Commission PhDs, along with their children, that the
Khadduri family decided it was time to find a way to escape, despite the risk
involved.
"Since
there was no air travel due to sanctions throughout the nineties, the escape
routes were limited through the risky north to
Difficulties
abounded, including the fact that Niran’s and the children’s names were
linked to Khadduri’s
name in government intelligence and security databases, especially at the
passport offices.
Trying
to obtain an exit visa for them would set off alarms.
Khadduri’s wife Niran,
was the first to escape to
On
the eve of one planned escape, Saddam’s personal assistant and trusted
secretary, Abid al- Hamid Mahmood Himood, (Abid Himood) issued a hand-written order signed by himself and
delivered by a messenger, ordering the confiscation of the passports of Khadduri’s daughters Y and Nofa, and his son Tammam
Two
years later, after many heartbreaking attempts and trials, and betrayal by
either a Ba’athist neighbor or a university
colleague, the Khadduri’s met their helpmeet for espape in a Christian named Bassim Ysho’
Putrus, referred to in Khadduri’s
book by his traditional name, Abu Diyar.
"Abu
Diyar would only help Christians to escape, due to an
unsavory religiously discriminating experience he had endured in the early
nineties," Khadduri explains, "he could only trust Christians to not
expose him."
Abu
Diyar obtained passports and exit visas for the
children.
In
the meantime, Khadduri was called into yet another meeting with Jafar. This
time they were in the midst of preparing the final declaration for the United
Nations on the scope of the nuclear weapons program, before and after the 1991
war.
"We
were about to submit the total gamut of our activities in that report to the
IAEA," Khadduri explains, "Many meetings were held with all of our
colleagues in the now defunct PC3, some of whom I had not seen for several
years. We would spend countless hours in the secret house in Jadiriyah district going over reports, papers and faint
memories. One sticking point was the fate of the magneto-optical discs that
Jafar had made me hand over to Abdul Halim al-Hajjaj before the start of the 1991 war. The disappearance
of the two discs that contained Groups 1, 2 and 3 reports angered Jafar."
Three
hours later the group still had not gotten to the bottom of who had or what
happened to the magneto optical discs.
Betting
on
In
the meantime, Khadduri completed the single page form to apply for a Landed
Immigrant application to
The
filled form was secretly sent in 1995 to the Canadian Consulate in
More
than a year of tense waiting followed.
The
sinister machinations of Abid Himood haunted
Khadduri. The scientist knew his phones were tapped, and was cautious about
what he said. Friends felt threatened by aggressive intelligence grilling. No
matter what Khadduri did, Himood seemed to find out
about it, thwarting every plan.
Khadduri
began to slide into chronic depression.
Abu
Diyar and Khadduri suspected that there was a
"super Intelligence Agency," higher than the known eighteen
intelligence agencies, controlled by Abid Himood and
whose personnel were unknown to the rest of the intelligence and security
services.
Al-Sahhaf tried to help by contacting Mohammad al-Douri (Abu Omar) at the Intelligence headquarters to
intercede on Khadduri’s behalf. Abu Omar invited
Khadduri to meet with him at their headquarters, next to the Mansoor restaurant that was bombed in the
The
Khadduri
explains: "It is told that Saddam did enter that meeting place with his
sons, leaving his personal guard at the front of the building. They then
proceeded
to leave the building immediately
through the back door minutes before the exploding bunker busters. He
apparently had purposely arranged to hold that meeting as a
bait. He intended to confirm to himself the information that was
reaching him indicating that the head of his guard entourage was in fact
informing the Americans on his movements and location. It is rumored that
Saddam summarily executed him after the failed attack. "
During
Khadduri’s escape planning, Abid Himood,
the shadowy head of the "super intelligence" agency, fed up with al-Sahhaf’s (Baghdad Bob) continued nagging about Khadduri’s case, upped the ante by ordering Khadduri to be
arrested if he set foot in the Foreign Ministry again.
Abu
Diyar finally successfully got Khadduri a passport
with another name on it. "By doing that, he would be able to get all of us
out of
Khadduri
and his children would make a successful escape after midnight, at 3 in the
morning, with Abu Diyar and a trusted Jordanian
driver: they were headed for Traibil, a city at the
Jordanian border.
Twenty-four
hours later, a suspicious Abid Himood dispatched five
senior presidential palace staff members to Traibil,
but it was too late to stop the family.
The
Khadduris had made it across the border into
Exhiliration and catharsis
Khadduri
recalls the "exhilarating reunion" with his wife Niran on Sunday
August 2.
"An
impromptu feast was thrown by the neighbors in the building where she had
rented an apartment," he recalls.
They
were summoned the next morning to the Canadian Embassy in
"During
that first week in Amman, I experienced several nightmares of volcanic
suppressed fears," Khadduri recalls, "I would wake up drenched in
sweat and trembling as I dreamt that I was somehow back in Iraq and being asked
to report to Intelligence. I was beginning to unwind."
Dhafir
Selbi, Khadduri’s life long
friend and previous boss at PC3, had managed, after seven years of waiting
after his retirement, to obtain his passport. He met up with the family in
Six
months later, a senior Canadian diplomat traveled to
They
left for
Arriving
in a snowstorm, twelve years old Nofa broke out in tears, "I don’t have
any friends here," she said. "I don’t know how to speak English. I
want to go back to
"She
persevered and flourished," her father reports. Nofa later
wrote an account of her childhood experience during Gulf War I that has been
posted in the Internet.
Khadduri
went on to land a job as a network administrator at a small college in Toronto,
living quietly until hearing the Bush administration claims of an active Iraqi
nuclear program jolted him into action.
Late
in August 2002, after hearing President Bush utter what Khadduri described as
"an ominous deliberate misinformation campaign" he turned to his wife
Niran and announced the end of his "low profile slumber."
Khadduri would soon take leave from his network administrator job to complete
his memoirs, and write for an independent news site, while ‘big’ media and
government in
Next
up Part IV: "Coming out fully"
Part
4: "Coming out Fully"
Author’s
Note:
The
debate over
Dr.
Imad Khadduri was a top scientist involved in Iraq's nuclear program from 1968
until the end of 1998, when he was able to escape. He now serves as a network
administrator in
In
presenting its case for war, the Bush administration insisted the
The
President stated that the regime posed a "direct and growing threat"
to
An
imminent nuclear threat was repeatedly mentioned by administration officials in
the media and in speeches.
Secretary
of State Colin Powell stated, "We have no indication that Saddam Hussein
has ever abandoned his nuclear weapons program" and Vice-President Dick
Cheney told media that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted his nuclear weapons
program.
Dr.
Khidir Hamza, a former physics professor from
"One
thing is clear: These weapons must be must be dislodged from Saddam, or Saddam
must be dislodged from power," said Sen Joe
Biden, D-Delaware.
The
hearings, he added, were "not designed to prejudge any particular course
of action."
On
October 6, 2002 President Bush addressed the nation, warning that the Iraqi
dictator must not be permitted to threaten
National
Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told media, "We don't want the smoking
gun to be a mushroom cloud."
Both
Bush and Cheney warned of the threat of "nuclear blackmail."
Disturbed
by what he called a deliberate misinformation campaign, Khadduri turned to his
wife Niran in August 2002, and announced that he was going to "come out
fully:" a reference to leaving his quiet life behind and telling what he
knew about the nuclear program.
Two
hours later, his first article, Iraq’s nuclear non-capability,
was finished. In it, Khadduri raised serious doubts about the credibility of
British and American intelligence, upon which, the White House said its claims
of a nuclear threat were founded.
"Bush
and Blair are pulling their public by the nose," Khadduri wrote,
"covering their hollow patriotic egging on with once again shoddy intelligence.
But the two parading emperors have no clothes".
Khadduri
recounted the dismal condition of
Scientist
ignored by ‘big media’
Khadduri’s article was sent to several major
newspapers, including the New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post,
The Independent and The Times.
No
one was interested.
A
UN official later emailed Khadduri, "A lot of people are doing their
homework. Not the press."
Enter
Erich Marquardt,
editor of online journal Yellow Times.
The editor and the scientist established a strong rapport, leading to the
publishing of several articles.
Soon
the Toronto Star was calling and Canadian TV was battling for a first interview
with Khadduri. Other interviews followed, including one with Reuters, but
Khadduri was largely ignored by the American newspapers and television, and
remained relegated to the less-trafficked independent pages of Yellow Times.
A
plan for CBS‘ "60 Minutes" to carry the
first American interview of Khadduri was reportedly scrapped at the last
minute, because an American consultant to CBS believed (but had no proof) that
the American government probably had secret data proving a nuclear
program.
Then
came a call from CNN. Khadduri reports an Arabic-named
CNN representative, called from CNN headquarters in
CNN
senior foreign correspondent Christiane Amanpour
later made general statements suggesting her own network kowtowed to
the Bush administration in its war reporting.
The
statement was an interesting bookend to CNN’s Eason
"Swallowed
up by the politicians"
Meanwhile,
prior to the war, Khadduri was contacted by and corresponded with a member of
the Iraqi Action Team at the IAEA (referred to here, as "B") who was scouring
"B"
had concurred with the articles written by Khadduri and published on Yellow
Times.
"We
established an immediate rapport," Khadduri said, "He wondered
whether I would be willing to have an interview with the IAEA and ultimately by
UNSCOM, in accordance with the Security Council recommendations. I agreed on
the condition that the interview would be carried out in
A
fascinating email trail between the scientist and the WMD hunter ensued.
"If
"It
would appear this is all a game and that no one is really serious about
preventing a war. I have tried to be technically rigorous. I guess we will be
swallowed up by the politicians."
He
also referred to the strong
"A professional liar?"
B
continued: "Hamza left the
country in 1995 with government permission. He was interviewed and
allowed to leave. He knew nothing and they knew it. He lies all the time…If
Hamza can influence Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and Donald Rumsfeld with access to the office of
the secretary of defense, then the
We
need to do something."
The
email was dated February 8, 2003.
Three
weeks later, WorldNetDaily and Newsweek
broke stories on the "sensitive" documents of 1995 Hussein Kamel debriefing in Jordan, with WND revealing far more of
the contents.
In
the UN interview, Kamel stated that all weapons had
been destroyed, and no nuclear program was underway. He also characterized
Hamza as a "professional liar" who could not deliver, and was let go.
The debriefing also indicates that the UN assessed a document given to them by
Hamza as a fake.
Khadduri
said, "Kamel’s testimony was suppressed for
eight years until it’s ferreting out in February 2003."
It
was in fact, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who was popping up
across the globe like a vexing jack-in-the-box, offering sensitive UN documents
to interested reporters, of which there were few.
Ritter
offered Fox and Friends the documents live on the air, but the hosts ignored
the offer.
This
reporter, Newsweek and later Glen Rangwala, the
Cambridge University analyst who in early February revealed that Tony Blair's
"intelligence dossier" was plagiarized from a student thesis,
obtained the sensitive UN documents.
Media
watchdog Fair.org called the revelation of the documents, "biggest story
of the
Kamel’s name had been repeatedly invoked by
administration officials as they sought to convince the public
Colin
Powell, who said there was no indication that
Meanwhile,
an exception to the aforementioned American media blackout of Dr. Khadduri, was Fox News Channel.
In
February of this year Khadduri appeared on John Kasich’s show, the very week
that the story
revealing Hussein Kamel’s debriefing documents broke.
An
ignorant Kasich, apparently unaware of the stories, talked over the top of
Khadduri, and insisted there definitely was a post-Gulf War nuclear program
because Kamel had said so.
He
also asked Khadduri if he was a Saddam sympathizer.
‘In
all fairness," Khadduri notes, "Kasich did hold another interview and
he courageously did correctly quote a few damning lines from my articles."
Aluminum
tubes, uranium discounted
On
February 16, B wrote on the notorious aluminum tubes that the Bush administration
insisted were proof of a reconstituted nuclear program: "Fact. The
aluminum tubes have been used to build tens of thousands of rockets. Hypothesis. The tubes might be diverted for centrifuges.
Can’t people understand the difference between fact and hypothesis?"
The
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) concluded that the aluminum tubes
were not intended for nuclear weapons development but for the reverse
engineering of 81- millimeter rockets
In
other "B" emails, he advised, "I cannot approach the press or
write articles," adding "I thought the Powell speech was the bottom
of the barrel. They have no useful evidence. The aluminum tubes are a joke.
They are parts for rockets that
Faleh’s house, Blix
blunders
One
issue that Khadduri found especially provoking was the UN search of Faleh Hamza’s house.
Falih (or Faleh)
Hamza, is a laser physicist who Khadduri says had no part in
"They
claimed that the documents they had found in his home indicated that
A
friend of Khadduri’s in the Iraqi Action Team in
Vienna then informed him of a "revealing fact" just one day before Blix’s report to the Security Council on January 27, 2003.
"Upon
Blix’s insistence, the teams had obtained from the
American and British Intelligence a list of about twenty five sites, one of
which was ultra hush-hush," Khadduri said, "The inspectors duly
visited and inspected each one of these sites in December 2002 and had found
absolutely no evidence of any rejuvenated nuclear weapons program. In fact,
some of them even came out stating that US Intelligence was providing them with
nothing but "garbage after garbage
after garbage.‘"
Khadduri
complains that in his report to the Security Council on January 27, 2003 Blix failed to mention the lack of findings of the secret
Intelligence information provided by the American and British Intelligence.
B
wrote Khadduri: "Yes, a finding of ‘no finding,’ especially in a place
where something was specifically alleged is a major finding."
Khadduri
faults Blix on another point, accusing him of
intentionally spreading misinformation: "[Blix]
also promoted the case of Falih Hamza as being
another belated uranium enrichment attempt by
On
the Faleh issue, B wrote to Khadduri, "Notice
how Powell softened his talk on Faleh’s house? A big softening. I hope you still feel it’s worth talking to
me. Someone made that softening happen."
On
March 8, Jacques Baute, head of the Iraqi Action Team
of IAEA inspectors, flew to
(Note:
Baute is not the identity of "B")
"We
knew each other from
Signing
your own "death warrant"
Khadduri
was particularly irked by Powell’s claim that Iraqi scientists were asked to
sign confessional declarations, with a death penalty clause.
They
were allegedly used to force the scientists to promise not to reveal their
secrets to the IAEA inspection teams.
"Exactly
the opposite was true," says Khadduri, "The four or five, as I
recall, such declarations, the last of which was in 1997, held us to the
penalty of death in the event that we did not hand in all of the sensitive
documents and reports that may still be in our possession!"
"One
would have thought that had Powell’s Intelligence services provided him with a
copy of these declarations," he added, " and not depended on
‘defectors’ testimonies who are solely motivated by their self-promotion …and
availed himself to a good Arabic translation of what these declarations
actually said,…"
On
this issue, B wrote: "What did you think of the Powell talk? Is it really
that desperate?….For example, everyone with a security
clearance in the
B
added, "I was, personally, very influenced by the terrorism part, because
the nuclear part was a joke. If Saddam is harboring [al-]Qaida,
then there is plenty of reason to act. If it is aluminum tubes, then the
How
key officials steered the course toward war
Key
facts regarding Bush administration claims about a reconstituted Iraqi nuclear
program have been uncovered by investigative reporter Paul Sperry of WorldNetDaily, and are as follows:
The buried centrifuge parts
The
Bush administration, it’s case for a revived nuclear
program crumbling, latched onto
The
administration failed to mention, that Obeidi, the
previous head of the centrifuge enrichment process, himself stated that
Jacques
Baute, chief U.N. nuclear inspector for
A source who declined to be named said Obeidi and his
family are beingheld incommunicado in
WND’s
Paul Sperry commented, "That the CIA would invite CNN over to
Sperry also stated, "Congress needs to call White House and CIA aides to testify
in formal and open hearings – unless, of course, it intends to abdicate its
oversight powers along with its power to declare war."
Dead
scientists don’t talk
David
Kay, head of the 1200-member Iraqi Survey Group charged with searching for WMD
in
Kay’s
statement indicates there was no evidence of a nuclear program, although he
repeatedly mentioned suspicious and uncharacterized "projects" by Dr.
Khalid Said, the leader of the secret PC3’s Group 4.
Dr.
Said won’t be giving testimony about
According
to Khadduri and others, Said had taken over as leader after Dr. Khidir Hamza ("Saddam’s Bombmaker")
was kicked out in 1987 for inferior performance, after only six months in the
position.
Kay
referred to scientists being afraid to testify, and difficulties in
investigating the area of nuclear issues because Dr. Said is now deceased.
Dr.
Said died in a hail of bullets when he failed to stop quickly enough at a
And
as previously reported in this series, the
The
choice of Hamza is troubling given his credibility problems which have received
almost no press in
The
documents claimed reconstitution of
Last
year, David Albright
told Australia's Lateline, "I must apologize that we no
longer can in any way recommend Dr. Hamza. I unfortunately now believe he is
deliberately distorting both
his past credentials and his statements about Iraqi nuclear
capabilities then and now."
Albright
is a physicist, and President of the Institute for
Science and International Security (ISIS) in
Albright
cooperated actively with the IAEA Action Team from 1992 until 1997 and
questioned members of
Albright said, "I believe
that his statements are often inaccurate, they're inconsistent," adding,
"I think he's distorted his title dramatically."
Ironically,
Hamza is quoted as an authoritative source on a White House web
page on
This
reporter asked Dr. Imad Khadduri if his testimony had ever been sought by US
government officials, or if he had ever been asked to testify before Congress.
"Never, " he replied.
The
lack of interest in questioning Khadduri, who has been available for
questioning for five years, and whose experience in the program was according
to interviewed officials, far more extensive and recent than "Saddam’s Bombmaker," raises serious questions about the
motivation, competency and thoroughness of "intelligence" presented
to the American public on
In
addition to the lack of evidence of a nuclear program, Sperry's investigations
for WorldNetDaily led to the following reports:
Other
administration
officials have backpedaled also, and language appears to have
softened to include adjectives like Iraqi "aspirations" or
"desires" for WMD, and "programs" of WMD, which could
arguably include intent and paperwork, rather than actual weapons.
Imad
Khadduri contends that Bush, Blair and their senior officials waged a criminal
invasion based on misinformation.
"Is
this the democracy model for a "liberated"
Meanwhile,
well-known law professor Francis Boyle, politicians, journalists and even some
Next up: Part
V: ‘Weaponsgate’
Part 5: Weaponsgate
Author’s
Note:
The
debate over
Dr.
Imad Khadduri was a top scientist involved in Iraq's nuclear program from 1968
until the end of 1998, when he was able to escape. He now serves as a network
administrator in
"And
ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. John VIII-XXXII"
---Inscription in main lobby of CIA headquarters
As
former Iraqi nuclear scientist Dr. Imad Khadduri, a Canadian resident,
continues to be ignored by the Bush administration officials and mainstream
American media, David Kay, who is in Iraq reportedly working hard to uncover
the truth about the alleged Iraqi nuclear program, repeatedly cited only a dead
scientist in his recent report to media -Dr. Khalid Said.
As
mentioned earlier in this series, Dr. Said cannot report on the nuclear issues
raised by the Bush administration because was killed by American troops on
April 8, 2003 when he failed to stop quickly enough at a
Adding
to the omission of ignoring the "live" scientist, Khadduri was very
familiar with the work of Khalid Said’s Group 4
activities under the secret PC3 group (see previous installments of this
series) and at one point carried and concealed the only magneto-optical disk of
Said’s group work with him.
The
omission is more ironic given that behind the scenes, an IAEA official
(referred to here simply as "B") is currently in the process of
questioning Khadduri about Said.
"Many
of us questioned Oeidi saying that Khalid was behind
centrifuges because dead men can't defend themselves," writes
"B." "Frankly, we were not impressed with Khalid as a manager
and as a technician. Would you be willing to share your candid opinion with me
of Khalid as a leader and as a technical visionary?"
And
referring to
Jacques Baute, chief International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA), nuclear inspector in
A "Faustian bargain?"
Dr. Gordon Prather, a physicist
who was the army's chief scientist during the Reagan years, notes the reports
that Kay was fired from his position as deputy director of the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Iraq Action Team in the early 1990s because of his
contacts with the
One
Pentagon source indicated Kay was not seen or heard of at the Pentagon in the
1980’s when he was on staff. The source believes from as far back as the ‘80’s
Kay may have been a CIA
operative.
Khadduri
told this reporter, "We were informed by our Security/Intelligence - since
the day that David Kay was put in
he set-up his communication trailer in front of the Khairat
building -where the inspectors were encircled for a week- in September 1991, he
beamed the scanned reports gleaned from that building directly to the CIA in
Langley, and then to the UN/IAEA."
David
Kay went on to later tell media, "I realize it was always a bargain with
the Devil -- spies spying. The longer it continued, the more the intelligence
agencies would, often for very legitimate reasons, decide that they had to use
the access they got through cooperation with UNSCOM to carry out their
missions."
"Both
Hamza and Kay are snakes, and I don’t mind going on record saying that,"
Prather commented.
Objective
reports?
David
Kay is presently tasked with uncovering the actual objectives, scope, and
dimensions of
Kay
gave media a short unclassified report
on Oct. 2, the same day that he gave behind-closed-doors "interim
report" to a panel of several congressional committees.
Kay’s
report is notable for its subtle and sophisticated omissions which are
characteristic of the language of political propaganda and persuasion and not
merely a function of the unfinished nature of the work.
The
report is peppered with linguistic vagaries expansive enough to drive a
hypothetical biological weapons trailer through - including phrases and words
like "may have," "research," " plans,"
"could be applied to," "indications" of, "interest,
"laboratory possibly used for," "can be used to produce "
(vs. was used to produce) "searching for" and
"capacity."
It
is a report impossible for journalists to corroborate because of the vagaries
and the lack of names of scientists interviewed -except for the dead one.
There
is said to be "no proof" the notorious two trailers President Bush
said were "weapons of mass destruction," were used for biological
weapons production, but Kay instead uses a ‘reverse-logic’ stating,
"nothing we have discovered rules out their potential use in BW
production."
The
mere realm of possibility thus becomes sufficient cause for a hypothesis
reaffirmed, and for the endless and impossible proving of a negative - a
hallmark of the administration’s war arguments.
The
case of the mysterious "mushroom cloud"
Unnamed
Iraqi officials allegedly told Kay that Saddam would have resumed nuclear
weapons development at "some future point" putting the nuke
activity reiterated by the administration prior to the war, as well as an
important pre-war rationale, in the realm of Steven Spielberg’s "Department of Pre-Crime."
Others
allegedly told Kay that Saddam "wanted" to restart the nuclear
program, but no proof has been uncovered that there was capability or operation
of even the most elemental activity of such.
Evidence
of renewed nuclear weapons research has not been found, not even esoteric
doodling on the back of a
Kay
reported that Dr. Khalid Ibrahim Said (the "dead scientist")
"began several small and relatively unsophisticated research initiatives
that could be applied to nuclear weapons development."
Could
be applied in what way? Were they directly related to nuclear weapons research
or were they research initiatives in another field with unavoidable
"dual" applications common to the field of nuclear physics? Were
these initiatives done for the government or his own enjoyment and exercise as
a scientist?
These
and other important basic questions are not answered in the vague language of
the report.
The
villainous vial
Among
the "finds" of the report, was a vial of live C. botulinum
Okra B. (from which a biological agent can be produced) hidden in the back of
an Iraqi scientist’s refrigerator.
The tube was touted as a vindication of war, but it raises another question:
was a bombing campaign and the deaths of over 10,000 people, and the dropping of napalm the
only way the technologically superior and intelligence-equipped US could get to
a vial of crunk hidden in the back of a lone
scientist’s refrigerator?
Said
Kay, "This discovery -- hidden in the home of a BW scientist --
illustrates the point I made earlier about the difficulty of locating small
stocks of material that can be used to covertly surge production of deadly
weapons."
However
the report gives no evidence of any capability of biological weapons
production.
Glen
Rangwala of Cambridge University points out that botulinum type B can also be used for making an antidote
for common botulism poisoning and for that reason many countries and military
laboratories keep sample strains, including the
"Throughout
the report, Kay kicks up a sandstorm of suggestiveness, but no more,"
wrote Fred Kaplan in MSNBC’s Slate.
Kaplan
called Kay’s report, a "shockingly lame piece of work."
The
‘compassionate war’
WMD
and terrorist connections were not the only themes that were and continue to be
exposited as pretext for the preemptive war.
In
his address before Australian parliament, President Bush invoked a familiar
theme of the inhumane brutality of Saddam Hussein, suggesting that it was a
vindication of war.
"Who
can possibly think that the world would be better off with Saddam Hussein still
in power?" Bush asked as he wrapped up a six-nation lobbying campaign
addressing Asian and Pacific allies.
Administration
officials have repeatedly referred to Saddam Hussein’s hideous atrocities
including victim’s tongues being cut out, brutal rapes and persons being fed
head-first into a shredding machine.
They
were powerful emotional appeals to a compassionate
The
references to brutality though beg a question related to the second
presidential debate of the 2000 campaign, regarding the genocide in
In
1994, 600,000 people were hacked to death with machetes and otherwise brutally
murdered in a frenzy of violence so horrific one African missionary said,
"There are no more devils in Hell. They are all in
Aerial
photographs showed an apocalyptic scene of rivers running red with blood while
clogged with the bloated corpses of tens of thousands of people.
Former
President Clinton did not intervene, and later apologized for
"missing" the genocide.
During
the presidential debate, Bush was asked if he would've done anything
differently.
Bush
indicated he would not have
acted differently, adding, "I thought they made the right decision not to
send
The
fact that the brutality in
Calling
for investigations
Meanwhile
journalists, politicians and academics as well as two
California cities and grassroots
citizen groups , are calling for investigations, and
even impeachment.
WorldNetDaily Washington bureau chief Paul Sperry
commented, "Congress needs to call White House and CIA aides to testify in
formal and open hearings – unless, of course, it intends to abdicate its
oversight powers along with its power to declare war. "
The
New York Times’ Paul Krugman argued, "If that
claim was fraudulent, the selling of the war is arguably the worst scandal in
American political history - worse than Watergate, worse than
Iran-contra."
John
Dean, former White House counsel to Richard Nixon said, "Krugman is right to suggest a possible comparison to
Watergate. In the three decades since Watergate, this is the first potential
scandal I have seen that could make Watergate pale by comparison. If the Bush
Administration intentionally manipulated or misrepresented intelligence to get
Congress to authorize, and the public to support, military action to take
control of
Dean,
in his previous legal analysis for Findlaw.com, was careful to add that there
needed to be proof that President Bush knowingly lied.
Supporters
of the President consider such suggestions outrageous, and even traitorous,
citing the need for the nation to be unified in the face of the enemy of
terrorism.
Administration
officials have previously suggested that media if too critical in its coverage, could in effect be aiding the enemy –terrorists.
Calling for impeachment :
"We told you so!"
Meanwhile,
law professor Francis Boyle
of the University of Illinois, continues to spearhead calls for
impeachment of Bush,
Cheney,
Ashcroft
and Rumsfeld.
Boyle leads the Impeach Bush Now campaign, which is largely run by
"hard-working and idealistic students."
Responding
to Khadduri’s revelations, Boyle said, "I and
others in the American peace
movement were saying this months ago when a crisis was first developing - that
there were no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) over there, and it was all just
propaganda to generate a war," Boyle said.
"Now
for the legal and constitutional aspect, if we take a look at the resolution
passed in October authorizing the use of military force, the ‘whereas’ clauses
are filled with statements that were wrong. They were propaganda at the time
and drafted into legislation by Alberto Gonzalez - then sent to Congress.
We
are in a situation where the White House procured a de facto declaration
of war on a basis of fraud and misrepresentation.
The
point is, if President Clinton can be impeached for lying about sex, what about
President Bush for lying about war?"
Bush
"cooked" over "conspiracy?"
Boyle
agrees with John Dean who has said that the situation may fall under the "conspiracy
to defraud" statue, which if applied to Nixon, is also applicable to Bush.
"To
put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on
bogus information, he is cooked," Dean said, "Manipulation or
deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be
‘a high crime’ under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a
violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal
anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony ‘to defraud the United
States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.’
Boyle
observes, "We’ve seen Congressman Conyers say the administration
absolutely lied about these WMD, now Sen. Kennedy has said the war was procured
in the basis of fraud."
But
is it credible that Democrats really were in the dark when it came to
intelligence questions, including those Democrats who sat on intelligence
committees? And if they were, why did they not speak out vigorously before the
war?
"I
think they knew all along," said Boyle,
"knew it was propaganda concocted by the spin-cons at the
Pentagon."
On
a possible congressional reaction, Boyle speculated, "They will say they
did vote for war, but were lied to. They might act to protect themselves, by
sponsoring a bill of impeachment."
"I
think it will become clearer as time goes on, about the assertions regarding
WMD -WMD that aren’t there - regretfully for everyone involved, including those
serving so bravely in our military, the killed, wounded and the 10,000 Iraqi
civilians killed."
"It’s
a terrible mess."
He
adds that impeachment comes down to citizen participation: "The Congress
is empowered to impeach a sitting President, but will only do so in response to
overwhelming public pressure"
"
Meanwhile,
as American anti-war demonstrators plan another march on
the Capitol and San Francisco on October 25th, Imad
Khadduri says he weeps over Iraq, which he says has served as fodder for the
political ambitions of both Saddam Hussein and President Bush, with the Iraqi
people a mere afterthought.
Khadduri,
like so many others, has suffered at the hands of Saddam, yet says he fears
"Bush,
Blair and their senior officials lied to their people, knowingly, and waged a
criminal invasion …Is this the democracy model for a ‘liberated’
The
scientist was motivated earlier this year to compile his notes on the Iraqi
nuclear program, and review information with his former associates as well as
release documents pertaining to covert operations of the pre-Gulf War program.
The
author generously shared much of that information with this writer over a
period of months starting in February 2003, in the form of phone interviews,
email interviews, emails sent to him from other Iraqi nuclear officials on the
history of the program, -all information that would wind up forming critical
parts of his new book, "Iraq’s Nuclear Mirage." In addition, this
writer received a rough draft of chapter four, the fascinating email trails
between the IAEA’s "B," and the scientist, and finally an advance
electronic copy of the book prior to its release.
The
availability of the book, originally slated to be in American bookstores in
December or January, has now been accelerated due to demand generated by the
publication of this series. The Washington Post has expressed interest in Khadduri’s information, and investigative reporter Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker recently completed a one-hour
interview with the scientist.
The
"Lion of
Meanwhile,
Khadduri predicts that the
"The
Lion of Babylon will rise again," he predicts
Khadduri’s comments were mirrored by statements
made by US intelligence experts who previously warned administration officials
that Saddam posed no imminent threat to the
Classic
military strategy theory often counsels against backing an opponent who is not
an imminent threat into a "corner" and allowing him no "way
out," warning that such a controversial move may create a greater danger
than previously existed, thereby complicating military decision-making.
That
type of counsel also appeared in a still-secret report given to the President
on Oct. 2 2002. The summary, or "key judgments" section, of the
90-page National Intelligence Estimate was recently declassified. WorldNetDaily obtained a copy from the National Security
Council. (The report is different from the unclassified 25-page white
paper the CIA made public on its website last October.) Page 4 of the report said
"Saddam
if sufficiently desperate might decide that only an organization such as
al-Qaeda –with worldwide reach and extensive terrorist infrastructure, and
already engaged in a life-or-death struggle with the United States could
perpetrate the type of terrorist attack that he would hope to conduct."
A
chemical or biological weapons attack against the
Meanwhile,
Osama bin Laden sidekick Ayman al-Zawahiri has issued
an ominous tape-recorded warning: "But we tell
"364
days of desecration"
How
prepared is the
"The
only thing that's moving fast in
"Crude
politics"
Sperry,
author of "Crude Politics: How Bush's Oil Cronies Hijacked the War on
Terrorism" has been highly critical
of the Bush administration’s "diversion" from Osama bin Laden
to Saddam Hussein,
stating, "It's abundantly clear that Bush is playing politics with
homeland security. Apparently his own political survival is more important than
that of the people he swore to protect from al-Qaida after 9-11. That's not
leadership, that's cowardice."
Syndicated
columnist Michelle Malkin recently wrote a scathing
indictment of government failures, saying American politicians were spitting on the
graves of the victims of 9/11.
Malkin warned that one day of remembrance
and rhetoric by corrupt, callous and incompetent politicians, will be followed
by "364 days of desecration in deed."
Meanwhile David Kay continues his search for WMD in
"It
is far too early to reach any definitive conclusions," says Kay,
"and, in some areas, we may never reach that goal."
The
information provided in this report raises serious questions about the
information and processes used to reach those conclusions.
The
fact that the US is having such difficulties reaching definitive conclusions
about WMD after the launching of preemptive war -the philosophy
of which is rooted in superlative and unerring prior intelligence – will
continue to raise serious questions that demand substantive answers and action.
*
* * * * *
Note:
Dr. Khadduri's new book, titled Iraq's Nuclear
Mirage: Memoirs and Delusions is available in American bookstores
and from the publisher/author.
The
author has agreed to ship copies out himself to Etherzone
readers who want to obtain a copy of the book now. Signed copies are also
available and inquiries should be directed to Dr. Khadduri via his website: Iraq’s Nuclear Mirage www.iraqsnuclearmirage.com
*
Sherrie Gossett is a Florida-based freelance writer, and formerly a researcher
with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Her website, Digital Dope, will be online shortly, and
will feature research, documents, photographs, and the behind-the-scenes
stories of her articles, including details of her meetings with organized crime
figures, government officials, undercover agents and other interesting
characters. Sherrie is a regular investigative columnist for Ether Zone.
Sherrie Gossett can be
reached at: spy_glass_3@yahoo.com
Published in the October 24,
2003 issue of Ether Zone.
Copyright © 1997 - 2003 Ether Zone.
Published originally at EtherZone.com Republication in whole or in part is
expressly prohibited without prior permission from the author or publisher.
