A radar-avoiding U.S. B-2 bomber dropped two earth-shattering 4,600-pound 'bunker-buster' bombs on Friday on a major link in Iraq's communications network in downtown Baghdad, defense officials said. It was believed to be the first use of the big bombs on Baghdad. Allied jets have pounded targets in the Iraqi capital with hundreds of bombs and missiles in the week-old war to depose President Saddam Hussein. (Reuters Graphic)

Bombs Can't Bust Saddam Bunker, Builder Says
Fri Mar 28,10:49 AM ET
By David Crossland

BERLIN (Reuters) - The German architect of one of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s main bunkers in Baghdad said on Friday the Iraqi leader can survive anything short of a direct hit with a nuclear bomb if he stays within its four-feet-thick walls.

"It could withstand the shock wave of a nuclear bomb the size of the Hiroshima one detonating 250 meters away," said Karl Esser, a security consultant who designed the bunker underneath Saddam's main presidential palace in Baghdad.

U.S.-led troops will also find it hard to fight their way in through its three-ton Swiss-made doors, Esser told Reuters in an interview.

A retired Yugoslav army officer who helped build other bunkers for Saddam also told Reuters this week that the shelters were impenetrable and could survive an atomic bomb.

CNN reported on Friday that U.S. B-52 bombers dropped a two ton "bunker busting" bomb on the capital for the first time in the campaign.

The palace bunker can accommodate 50 people and has two escape tunnels, one leading 200 meters to the Tigris river.

It was built in 1982 and 1983 by German firm Boswau & Knauer, which merged into what is now the Walter-Bau AG building group.

At the time Esser was a consultant for a German government-sponsored civil protection body and had his own company, Schutzraumtechnik Esser GmbH, which supplied equipment for Saddam's bunker.

Whether Saddam is using the bunker or is even still alive is unclear, with London and Washington saying they were not convinced that television broadcasts he has made since the war started were live.

The U.S. and Britain launched the war on Iraq (news - web sites) last week with a bombing attack on Baghdad intended to target Saddam, and have pounded the city for nine days.

But Esser said "bunker busting" bombs like the one dropped on Friday would fail to penetrate the bunker because they first have to get though the palace built directly above it.

"The presidential palace above gives natural protection so the bunker can only be cracked by ground troops or a tactical nuclear bomb," said Esser.

The bunker ceiling itself, made of steel-reinforced concrete and up to two meters (yards) thick, was designed to withstand the direct impact of a 230 kg bomb, said Esser.

"It's not a combat bunker, it's an air raid shelter, otherwise it would have had to be built with gun slits and a variety of other features," said Esser.

"Ground troops could get in by taking out the doors with bazookas and explosives."

Construction took place at a time when western companies were legally supplying Saddam with arms and equipment during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

Esser said he assumes the plans of the bunker had been passed on to Germany's foreign intelligence service.

Esser remembers giving Saddam a personal tour of the bunker's features, which include a water tank, electricity generator, air filter, 30 square meter command center and so-called electromagnetic pulse protection system -- to shield electrical circuits from the impact of an explosion.

"He was satisfied," said Esser. "He was totally friendly. He was wearing civilian clothes and looked like an ordinary civil servant but you could tell he was important because everyone immediately went quiet when he started talking."

Esser said he had no qualms about having helped to protect a dictator likened to Hitler.

"It's not just one person getting protection, it's several people, it's the palace staff as well. I just see it as an achievement of bunker technology," said Esser.

Saddam's bodyguard warns of secret arsenal

By GORDON THOMAS

02Feb03

SADDAM Hussein's senior bodyguard has fled with details of Iraq's secret arsenal.

His revelations have supported US President George W. Bush's claim there is enough evidence from UN inspectors to justify going to war.

Abu Hamdi Mahmoud has provided Israeli intelligence with a list of sites that the inspectors have not visited.

They include:

AN underground chemical weapons facility at the southern end of the Jadray Peninsula in Baghdad;

A SCUD assembly area near Ramadi. The missiles come from North Korea;

TWO underground bunkers in Iraq's Western Desert. These contain biological weapons.

William Tierney, a former UN weapons inspector who has continued to gather information on Saddam's arsenal, said Mahmoud's information is "the smoking gun".

"Once the inspectors go to where Mahmoud has pointed them, then it's all over for Saddam," Tierney said.

Tierney, who has high-level contacts in Washington that go to the White House, said the information we publish today on Mahmoud's revelations "checks out, absolutely checks out".

Mahmoud was a mem ber of the elite unit that protects Saddam.

It is called the Murasiq Qun – the "Inner Circle".

He was known as "The Gatekeeper".

Mahmoud is a muscular Saddam lookalike often photographed standing behind Saddam when he is seated, or to his left when on the move.

Last week, Mahmoud was being debriefed at a high-security base in Israel's Negev Desert.

Ariel Sharon, the country's hard-line prime minister, has only allowed snippets of Mahmoud's sensational claims to be shared with the CIA and MI6.

"Sharon intends to shatter the growing anti-war movement," a source close to Mr Sharon said.

"He plans to call all those European leaders who are wavering to let them know how Saddam has continued to fool Hans Blix and his weapons inspectors."

Mahmoud's revelations include locations of five bunkers buried beneath man-made sand dunes.

Stockpiled in the bunkers are warheads identical to the empty shell cases found two weeks ago by the UN inspectors.

Mahmoud said those shells were on their way to be refilled and stored in the bunkers.

A transcript from his debriefing includes:

"Saddam's weapons of mass destruction are also concealed in a tunnel complex deep beneath the sewers of Baghdad and in an underground complex in Ouja, to the north of Tikrit.

"The complex was built five years ago with help from Chinese engineers.

"The entrance to the site is through a house in Tikrit. It is the home of one of Saddam's cousins and is more than half a mile from where the weapons are stored."

In another excerpt from his debriefing, Mahmoud boasts: "I was inside the innermost circle where Saddam eats and sleeps.

"I was among the handful of bodyguards closest to him.

"Very few people are allowed close to Saddam.

"Many of the TV images you see of him were taken years ago. Most people now only speak to him over the phone. He usually calls them.

"If they have to call him back with information he wants, it is passed through his sons (Uday and Qusay) or (Deputy Prime Minister) Tariq Aziz.

"All those close to him have codes, which they use to access the outer circle. But even they can only come so close to Saddam before there is a cut-off point – the Inner Circle. Even Tariq Aziz is checked to see if he is carrying weapons.

"Saddam knows fortunes are being offered to have him assassinated."

Saddam's paranoia increased after Uday, his eldest son, narrowly escaped assassination when gunmen riddled his car with bullets in 1996. Uday was partially paralysed and uses a wheelchair.

To avoid falling victim to even his own bodyguards, Saddam is a walking arsenal.

"He has concealed guns all over his body," Mahmoud said.

"He also has panic buttons to press if he even suspects somebody is about to attack him."

Israeli intelligence sources have hinted that the deal with Mahmoud included smuggling his family out of Iraq.

Mossad agents have done this before.

At the start of Saddam's reign of terror, they persuaded an Iraqi pilot to fly his Russian fighter to Israel – after spiriting out his wife and children.

* GORDON THOMAS is the author of 53 books which have sold more than 45 million copies. He has received two Mark Twain Society Awards for Reporting Excellence. Seven of his books have been made into movies, including five-times Academy Award nominated Voyage of the Damned and Enola Gay, which won the Emmy Award's Foreign Critics Prize. His Gideon's Spies: Mossad's Secret Warriors was made into a documentary which he wrote and narrated. It followed three years of research during which he was given unprecedented access to Mossad's key personnel.

Source

This is just more Reuters BS posing as a news article, and it is typical of the BS from Reuters since 9/11/2001.

Reuters is not able to print the truth when it comes to Islamofacist/kazi terrorism and the thugs in control of Iraq.

Reuters is controlled by an rich Opecker Prince who will not allow the words terrorism or terrorist to be used in any article where the Islamofacists/kazis are responsible.

The pure bull $ that Reuters has printed since New Years to save their Uncle Soddomite's rear end is massive and like a continuing wet dream by Reuters with little if any basis on reality! This wet dream posing as a news article is a prime example of the BS Reuters puts out posing as news.

Believe nothing that Reuters has to say about the Islamofacists leaders, our allies and our administration. Reuters creates more Bravo Sierra in a day than 1,000,000 cattle do.

This meter should be run with the posting of any Reuters article. Reuters makes the NY Slimes look all most honest.

Meanwhile, Reuters is taking a beating in the business world. Recently, Reuters reported a loss of $631 million, the largest in its 150-year history. In addition, Reuters announced 3,000 job cuts, along with the 3,200 jobs cut over the past two years. Reuters' market capitalization has plunged by almost 90 percent from its peak, and Reuters' stock has fallen to a 14-year low. (Reuters posts record loss, to cut jobs News provider to cut 3,000 workers as part of turnaround plan , Link to how the Reuters lies and BS hits Reuters's bottom line)

Apparently Reuters' dwindling credibility as a media provider is now affecting their bottom line. May Reuters go broke and slide into the Irrelevant Cesspool!

Ho Humm, more Bravo Sierra from Reuters!

Grampa Dave's final Reuters comment, Beware of any Reuters post without a bravo sierra warning.

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