Posted on 08/10/2005 9:32:33 AM PDT by jmc1969
IDAHO FALLS -A former Iraqi nuclear scientist told a crowd here that Iraq was on the brink of having a nuclear bomb just before the 1991 invasion of the country by U.S. and allied forces.
Mahdi Obeidi, who worked under Saddam Hussein, spoke to a full house gathered at the World Nuclear University Summer Institute Monday.
"Iraq was on the verge of having a nuclear bomb," he said. "The world will never know what Saddam would have done."
A centrifuge is a machine that spins at extremely high speed to enrich uranium, needed to build an atomic bomb. Obeidi spent several years building the centrifuge and at one point, had more than 200 engineers working under him on the project to build a nuclear bomb.
Initial attempts to build the centrifuge did not produce results with enough spin, Obeidi said. The first centrifuge spun at about 10,000 revolutions per minute.
We needed 10 times that amount, he said.
In the early stages of the program, Obeidi met with Hussein and when asked about progress, told him the troubles they were having.
After the meeting, a fellow scientist told Obeidi, "You should be more worried about disappointing him now than later."
The working environment was not a pleasant one, Obeidi said, adding that they would often say "The walls have ears."
Still, Obeidi said there were several motivating factors for scientists working for Saddam.
"Scientists are good people and scientists are task oriented. They love their science," he said.
In places like Iraq, Libya, Pakistan and Iran, Obeidi said there is more.
"There is an element of fear."
Proof positive.
But But but .. I thought Saddam wouldn't harm anyone
That's what the left keep telling us
And if the MSM had it's way, no one will ever see this story. Of course, they do print the really important news like Robert's adoption records.
> After the meeting, a fellow scientist told Obeidi,
> "You should be more worried about disappointing
> him now than later."
This is consistent with the theory that Saddam was acting
as if he had WMD programs to protect and threaten with,
because he thought he did. He was mistaken, because the
scientists were telling him what he wanted to hear.
Clearly, some were willing to give him false progress
reports.
Presumably, the dishonest scientists expected that matters
would never get to the point where the non-existent weapons
would actually be used.
This was the same guy who when interviewed, said he had buried the centrifuge in his garden. He also wrote a book about it. Welcome to Capitalism!
The bottom line is, Saddam lost the benefit of the doubt by invading Kuwait, gassing Kurds, and launching Scuds at Israel.
Should have got CBS and the NYT on board earlier.
Wow, great name and a sports headline writer's dream....
"Fighting atoms blow up in fourth quarter meltdown", etc. etc.
"And, we would have completed the project if we had just another couple of thousand tons of that high grade yellow cake from Niger to refine. Saddam was paying them good money to feed their people and providing a little extra to the Americans for their help in getting it to us and, then, bam, Gore isn't able to deal with us any more!"
Class of Nuk'em High. Wacky 80's movie.
100,000 rpm is very high. Probably these kinds of specifications shouldn't be given out to the public area even if they are correct. But, nuclear tech is widely known and those who need to know already know these things.
Good post. I distinctly reading similiar statements on this, going back easily a year or more ago. Probably was the same scientist, making comments. Any way you look at it Saddam wanted the bomb as badly as Momar Quadafe. A lot of the infrastructure required to obtain a nuclear device in Iran was worked on during the mid 70's till ODS. Despite the set backs due to the ODS and the Oil For Food programs, sanctions against him etc., it sure seems like he continued slowly for the say the OFF would be lifted and sanctions eased against him. Then they would have moved forward once again. This crap sbout WMD's in Iraq is going to never end.
To much is known collectively about Iraq to say they did not plan to have full bio/chem/nuclear weapon systems.
Hell, in the book BULLSEYE IRAQ DAn McKinnon ISBN 0-425-11259-4 written in 1987, about the IAF attack on the Osirik nuclear plant at Salmon PAK, there are tons of stuff about what he was procuring from Europe and Russia. I wonder how many folks realize back in 1980 Saddam bought 100 tons of yellowcake from Portugal, "hot cells" sold by Italy,
French forced (or have oil cut-off), enriched uranium close to being weapon grade, the lists went on and on.
Anyone that can find the book might consider purchase or getting from a library. It fits like a glove into what we have read in the past five years or so. Lots of stuff I have not seen elsewhere, plus a great action thriller on how the IAF flew that low ground mission to Iraq to take out the reactor facilities.
Saddam made a classical error by jumping off three years before he was ready. Hopefully all our enemies will make similar errors.
Special the defectors first hand knowledge of the location of weapons of mass destruction.
When the chips were down and we went into Iraq nothing came of all this first hand information as to the location of these WMDs.
These Iraqi liars had just about everyone fooled, and had us believing we were going to find WMDs in many places.
So put me down as skeptical that that Saadam was close to having a nuclear weapon.- Tom
They already have with 9-11.
If they waited a couple of years more to get other suicide cells in place right here in this country, it would have been far worse for us. - Tom
There are more enemies waiting just around the next corner, and the next. We'll never run out of enemies until we have nothing left to steal but an old blanket, and they'll probably try for that, too. Maybe they will all underestimate us all along.
She might have to change her tune!
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