Posted on 02/19/2002 5:43:00 AM PST by ex-Texan
Saddam's Bombmaker: Iraq Working on 'Hiroshima Size' Nuke
Iraqi madman Saddam Hussein will likely have a "Hiroshima size" nuclear bomb within the next 24 months, the physicist who headed up Iraq's nuclear weapons research program said Monday.
Citing U.S. intelligence estimates, Dr. Khidir Hamza told nationally syndicated radio taker Sean Hannity, "I don't think he has [nuclear weapons] right now but it may not take long for him to have it - a year or two probably."
"U.S. intelligence estimates at least a year. Germany estimates by 2005, three nuclear weapons," the top Iraqi nuke scientist said.
Dr. Hamza, who defected to the U.S. in 1994, warned about Hussein's nuclear weapons program in his autobiography, "Saddam's Bombmaker," three years ago. More recently he has been working closely with U.S. intelligence agencies.
He declined to describe the precise nature of his cooperation with those agencies, telling Hannity, "I cannot talk about that. You know that."
Hamza did reveal that the 1991 Gulf War interrupted Iraq's A-bomb program in its final stage, just as he and the rest of Saddam's nuke team were in the process of acquiring materials for the bomb's nuclear core.
HAMZA: We [scientists] dragged our feet. We really had enough material to make the bomb then. We delivered it now back to the French but we claimed that we could not extract enough uranium to put in a nuclear core. ...
HANNITY: So you're saying you did have enough - you could have built nuclear weapons but you dragged your feet?
HAMZA: We could have, yes. Actually, everybody [dragged their feet], including the chemists who were in the process of extracting the uranium from the French bureau. Nobody wanted to give Saddam a bomb because we know he would use it recklessly and finish Iraq with it. (End of Excerpt)
German intelligence now believes Hussein once again has all the bombmaking materials he needs except for the enriched uranium necessary for the nuclear core.
"According to the Germans he, more or less, has 30 to 35 percent of the technology needed to enrich uranium for bomb grade," said Hamza, adding, "so he will have enough uranium, and he already has a stockpile of uranium to use."
The top Iraqi nuke scientist said that, based on what he witnessed, Hussein is working on "Hiroshima size" weapons of "12 to 20 kilotons."
But he cautioned:
"There was some enhancement to the bomb that could raise it to 40 kilotons. So you are looking at [a]realistic nuclear weapons stockpile equivalent to that of, say, at least India and Pakistan - and if it continues, probably larger."
Aaahhh, so Europe is right and we shouldn't worry ...
It's just a little one.
sarcasm off
Recall the Mel Gibson film, 'The Patriot?' One of Mel's memorable lines was,.... 'The French' .....
Frogs are Frogs.
Saddam's Bomb Maker: Iraq Working on 'Hiroshima Size' Nuke
They're making a bomb the size of a Japanese city? Man, that's one whopper of a bomb!
Sorry, just had to comment. :)
While I agree with the yellow journalism part, seems I do remember a few missles launched from Russia right at about y2k that for whatever reason landed in the ocean instead of elsewhere. Self destruct after they somehow got launched?
Maybe they will have an unfortunate accident with it and solve quite a few problems in one fail swoop.
George W. Bush is making the elimination of terrorists his number one priority, and he should.
I believe this Bush initiative, if successful, will go down in our history as one of the most important intitiatives ever undertaken by a President. Failure could mean catastrophic, historic loss of life. I hope the American people are collectively smart enough to support this effort over the next number of years.
We have about a year before Saddam can announce to the world that he has nukes.
The implications of that are staggering. With nukes, he can reassert his claim to Kuwait as an Iraqi province, and his army could roll under the protection of a nuclear strike to back it up. And since we all know he's crazy enough to use them, the threat would be taken seriously.
He could call the shots for OPEC, and he could make demands on Israel that couldn't be ignored.
Even during and after Desert Storm, we were unable to locate all his SCUDs. There is no reason to think that he couldn't deploy nukes and hide them just as well, making a first strike against Iraq incredibly risky.
Time is short. The Europeans are contemplating their navels and criticizing Bush for being simplistic and unilateral. Those socialists do not have a clue.
They are all clones of Neville Chamberlain.
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