Posted on 03/27/2003 7:31:04 AM PST by Tspud1
Scientist says he hid nuclear materials in Iraq 20 years ago
Posted Wednesday, March 26, 2003 by Webmaster
Gazi George, a consultant for Titan in Quincy, says 39 rods of uranium were hidden in a specially built swimming pool
By Edward Husar Herald-Whig Staff Writer
A former Iraqi scientist says Iraq is hiding materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons. He knows this because he helped hide some of the materials more than 20 years ago.
Gazi George, who lives near Detroit, Mich., and does consulting work in Quincy, fled Iraq in 1981 after helping to hide 39 rods of enriched uranium — enough to build two nuclear bombs.
At the time, George was working for the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission. He was assigned to the Osirak nuclear power plant at Tuweitha when the commission received intelligence that the plant was being targeted by enemy forces during the Iraq-Iran War, which was then about a year old.
In an interview this morning with The Quincy Herald-Whig, George told how he devised a plan to remove the uranium from the nuclear plant’s reactor and hide it in a specially built swimming pool about a mile from the plant.
The plant was subsequently destroyed by Israeli fighter jets, and the uranium was never discovered. “Until today, I don’t think it’s accounted for,” George said.
George, now an American citizen, said he decided now to speak out about his experiences because he wants to show support for the U.S. military efforts in Iraq.
“I wanted to tell this story to anybody to let them know they are living in the best country in the world,” he said. “It’s the fairest country where you can speak, and freedom is guaranteed to you. In my case, I had to fight for my freedom. And they finally decided to kill me because I was fighting for it too hard.”
George said an international inspector was dispatched to the bombed site in 1981 to check for radiation. George said he was ordered to contaminate the grounds with a dusting of alpha emitters — a material that mimics a uranium spill — and the inspector went away satisfied that the plant’s nuclear material had been destroyed.
“The whole thing was faked,” he said.
George realized he knew too much about Iraq’s nuclear program and began fearing for his safety. His contract with the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission was going to expire in 1981. However, when he asked for permission to leave the country temporarily to witness the birth of his son because his wife was in the United States at that time, Iraqi officials denied the request.
“We’re not going to let you go anywhere,” he said he was told.
That’s when George started plotting his escape.
He called his sister in the United States who, in turn, contacted some friendly Iraqi doctors. They provided fake medical reports showing that George had contracted cancer and needed medical treatments in Europe. At the same time, George was quietly selling his house and making arrangements for his mother and aunt to leave the country as well.
George received permission to go to Europe in August 1981, but only after he turned over his wife’s passport to Iraqi officials. What the Iraqis didn’t know is that the passport he gave them was a duplicate — and that his wife was already safely out of the country.
George, his British-born wife and their first-born son lived with her relatives in England for a time. One day the telephone rang at the house. It was an official from the Iraqi embassy in London trying to locate George. The Iraqi official told George’s mother-in-law that the government had a big check for George, but he would have to pick it up himself at the embassy headquarters. George knew this was a trick to bring him back to Iraq — probably in a body bag.
“If you go to the embassy, you don’t leave the embassy,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at whig.com ...
Good to hear.
Yep, that sounds like a UN operation, see no evil. speak no evil, hear no evil. The Blix approach, just great!
I thought that Osirak never went operational? It was a long time ago and I'll have to do some searching to be sure.
IMHO, this paragraph gives the report credibility. Only a technical-type would know that uranium is an alpha emmiter and that the mimic material was an alpha emmiter.
It also shows how poor the inspection was. It is not a big effort to measure the energy of the alpha emmisions, which would have provided a fingerprint of the isotope.
I confirmed it:
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/Osirak.html
However, the raid would have to occur before the reactor went “hot” so as not to endanger the surrounding community.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/facility/osiraq.htm
The raid would have to occur before its first fuel was to be loaded, before the reactor went "hot" so as not to endanger the surrounding community.
However, the same article adds:
After invading Kuwait, Iraq attempted to accelerate its program to develop a nuclear weapon by using radioactive fuel from the Osiraq reactor. It made a crash effort in September, 1990 to recover enriched fuel from this supposedly safe-guarded reactor, with the goal of produced a nuclear weapon by April, 1991. The program was only halted after Coalition air raid destroyed key facilities on 17 January 1991.
But, perhaps the fuel was loaded, even though the reactor wasn't operational:
http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?strwebhead=Remembering+Osirak+attack&intcategoryid=5
Israel also knew that the reactor would be “hot” — radioactive — by the fall of 1981, and bombing after that would release huge amounts of radiation.
So, there may be grounds to be skeptical about this guy's claims. But perhaps he is actually describing the reactor's enriched uranium fuel rods? I don't know much about reactor design, so there may be some information "between the lines" that I'm not catching.
Come on in, the water's fine!
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