Free Republic

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. BERLIN (Reuters) - The German architect of one of Saddam Hussein'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...

Tomahawk cruise missile TARGETING Saddam Hussein in his presidential bunker will require a concerted attack using 16 cruise missiles directed to the same spot, its designer said yesterday. Karl Esser claimed the Iraqi dictator was "100 per cent safe" in the steel and concrete structure buried 100 metres below Baghdad. He said: "I am absolutely certain that Saddam Hussein will not be taken out by a rocket attack on his main palace in Baghdad as long as he remains underground in the bunker I designed." Mr Esser, 45, of Munich, whose grandmother built the bunker which protected Hitler from...