1991 Gulf War stopped Baghdad's atomic and biological weapons, top Iraqi scientist says

AP ^ | 1/27/5 | DOUG MELLGREN

[SmithL]

OSLO, Norway -- A scientist considered the father of Iraq's nuclear program said Thursday that his nation would have developed atomic weapons in the early 1990s had Saddam Hussein not ordered the invasion of Kuwait.

The invasion sparked the U.S.-led Operation Desert Storm in 1991, which drove Iraq out of Kuwait and marked the end of Baghdad's nuclear and biological weapons program, said Jafar Dhia Jafar, the scientific head of Iraq's nuclear weapons program.

"By the end of 1990, about 8,000 people were involved directly or indirectly in the nuclear program," said Jafar, presenting his new Norwegian-language book, "Oppdraget", which means The Assignment, describing the program.

"We were three years away, give or take a year," said Jafar, who fled Iraq during the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

In the book, Jafar describes being picked up in 1981 after 18 months in jail and brought to see Saddam, who, standing behind a desk in military uniform, instructed him to build an atomic bomb.

[SmithL]

Oh, there were WMDs?

[vpintheak]

Will the left ever get it? Doubt it, but it is always nice to see a little validation every now and then.

[oolatec]

The issue is whether or not he had them after 1991, not before...

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[justa-hairyape]

I dont recall anyone in the Bush administration claiming Saddam had operational Nukes prior to this current war. It was claimed that he had not properly documented destroying all of his functional chemical and biological WMD. These were the weapons he had previously been forced to admit possessing to the UN. It was also claimed that Saddam was actively seeking nuclear capabilites. That claim has now been vindicated by the top Iraqi scientist ordered to construct said nuclear weapons.

[piasa]

The Bush administration didn't say Iraq had operational nukes. Indeed, they said there was a need to act before such a time as iraq was able to field a nuclear weapon.

It was former UN inspector Scott Ritter who said Iraq had three technologically operational weapons needing only sufficient nuclear material to make them function.

[endthematrix]

Not really. Saddam was a thorn for regional stability in the 70's with conventional forces and strategically with Europe and the USA when he messed with his nuclear program. He had the means, motive, and opportunity to strike. If we looked the other way in 1991, Saddam would have the technologically capability to rain NUCLEAR (aside from chem and bio weapons) missiles intercontinentally, only years later. By using air strikes against his nuclear program in 1991 we bought only time. That time was running out. Saddam refusal have his program transparent was his failure, not ours. The world is safer for knowing what he has by the US looking into it, not the UN asking Saddam what he has. The world has been guessing for 20 years on what Saddam has knowing stating for the Saddam time frame: To become the Arab leader, get the Arab bomb and crush Israel.

[endthematrix]

It sure wasn't cotton candy Saddam was spinning in those centrifuges...

[piasa]

One of the issues was whether or not Iraq would reconstitute its nuclear programs the moment sanctions were lifted.

Another issue, since no one could reasonably argue that Iraq wouldn't do just that were Hussein to remain in power, was that a nuclear Iraq could use terrorism to blackmail other nations with impugnity, knowing that against a nuclear state most non-nuclear nations if not all nations would find it less risky to either accede to Saddam Hussein's demands or accept unimited terrorist casualties because retaliation would be too provocative.

Another issue was rapidly degenerating US and UK credibility as a force against terrorism, state-sponsored or otherwise, should we have to allow Iraq to thumb its nose at the cease fire agreement.

Another issue was the failure of Iraq to return 602+ Kuwaiti civilian and military prisoners from the first Gulf War, two American civilians accused of spying, one American Naval aviator from the first Gulf War, and even Iranian prisoners from the Iraq/Iran war.

Another issue was the inability of Iraq to account for even what Iraq itself claimed to possess as WMD.

Another issue was the construction of additional facilities at al Tuwaitha and elsewhere.

Another issue was Iraq's profuse funding of terrorist groups.

Another issue was Iraq's repeated violations of sanctions by smuggling oil.

Another issue was Iraq's failure to distribute relief food and medical supplies.

Another issue was Iraq's efforts at genocide, the elimination of the Marsh Arabs.

Another issue was Iraq's efforts to shoot down coalition aircraft.

Another issue was Iraq's violations of sanctions by using front companies to import forbidden materials, precursors, tools, technology, etc, which it continued to do right through 2002.

Another issue was Iraq's involvement in assassinating dissidents, including American citizens within the territory of the United States.

Another issue was Iraq's support of terrorist groups which have attempted to assassinate US officials inside the territory of the US and abroad.

Another issue was Iraq's bribery and blackmail of UN inspectors.

Another issue was that Iraq made no effort to cooperate fully with the UN inspections, which was part of the deal.

Another issue was Iraqi diplomats' involvement in acts of terrorism, as either support or funding, such as the murder of a US Green Beret and a Philippino citizen right before the war in a bomb attack.

Another issue was Iraq's harboring of wanted terrorists.

Another issue was Iraq's training of terrorists....

[piasa]

But wouldn't cotton candy go well with those mobile lab balloons?

[piasa]

I'm sure it wasn't cotton candy Saddam was planning to put in the warheads on those missiles he was building in that missile program our intel underestimated, as it turns out.

[ConservativeStatement]

While clicking through the TV channels this evening, I came across Dennis Miller's CNBC show; he had an actress (?) named Maria Bello on as a guest. The subject turned to Iraq. At one point she said something like "There is a piece of land near Santa Monica with crosses for all the dead American soldiers. Do you know if crosses were displayed for the innocent Iraqis killed in this war, it would cover the beach?" When Miller mentioned the murdered until Hussein, 300,000-plus was the figure he cited, she said "That is not necessarily true." She then went onto say "The war was fought for economic reasons. If it was fought for terrorism, we'd be in the Sudan and other places." When Miller said, there are two sides to this war. America against..." she interrupted and said "the rest of the world! (I guess she doesn't consider our allies as significant)." He then said "No, terrorism. These are people who want to kill babies and cut the heads off innocent people." The liberals continue to be insufferable.

[SunkenCiv]

no URL because it comes from AOL:

U.S. Seizes Iraqi Documents
by Jim Krane, AP
06/21/03 07:33 EDT

U.S. forces broke into an abandoned community hall early Saturday and seized piles of intelligence equipment and top secret documents bearing the seal of the former Iraqi secret service... Some of the documents made reference to Iraq's nuclear program, including manifests for the delivery of communications equipment to the Iraqi nuclear agency. One letter, dated Feb. 7, 1998, from the National Security Council of Iraq was addressed to the Iraqi Nuclear Organization, with a carbon to the Mukhabarat, the secret intelligence service... In Vienna, Austria, diplomats said U.N. atomic experts have tracked down tons of the uranium feared stolen from Iraq's largest nuclear research facility, much of it apparently found on or near the site. The Tuwaitha nuclear facility was thought to contain hundreds of tons of natural uranium and nearly two tons of low-enriched uranium, which could be further processed for arms use.

Nuke program parts unearthed in Baghdad back yard
Mike Boettcher,
David Ensor,
and producer Maria Fleet

Experts said the documents and pieces Obeidi gave the United States were the critical information and parts to restart a nuclear weapons program, and would have saved Saddam's regime several years and as much as hundreds of millions of dollars for research. David Albright, who was a U.N. nuclear weapons inspector in Iraq in the 1990s, said inspectors "understood that Iraq probably hid centrifuge documents, may have had components, and so it is very important that those items be found." ...Obeidi said he felt unsafe in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion and that he was getting pressure from different corners of the country. He also said other Iraqi scientists were watching to see if he was safe after he cooperated with the U.S. government. Now that he and his family are safely out of Iraq, Obeidi said he believes other scientists would come forward with other components of Iraq's weapons program.

Iraqi uranium found but concerns remain
by Rob Edwards
16:56 23 June 03

On Thursday, IAEA inspectors will complete their first mission to Iraq since the war. But they have not been allowed by the US to check the safety and security of these radiation sources, which are used in hospitals and factories or kept in storage. Many of the sources contain potentially lethal amounts of caesium 137, cobalt 60 and other radioactive isotopes. If stolen, they could be combined with a conventional explosive to make a bomb that would contaminate a city centre. They could also pose a serious threat to public health if mislaid or mishandled. Looting has been repeatedly reported at the biggest radiation store, the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Centre near Baghdad. Doctors in the area say they are seeing dozens of people every day with symptoms of radiation poisoning such as diarrhoea, rashes and nose bleeds... According to the IAEA director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, "most" of the uranium is accounted for, though he is still waiting for the final report from his inspectors. The material has been kept under IAEA seal since 1991 to prevent it from being manufactured into high-enriched uranium for atomic bombs.

Saddam's Bombmaker: France Helped Baghdad Get Nukes
Friday Jan. 24, 2002

According to Dr. Khidir Hamza, who ran Saddam's nuclear bombmaking program in the early 1990's, Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor was built by the French. When the Israelis determined that the reactor's real purpose was to make nuclear weapons, they destroyed it in a 1981 bombing raid. "From the moment Osirak was hit we knew we had to try another method to get the bomb," Dr. Hamza told the Washington Times in Sept. 2002. The year before Dr. Hamza confirmed that the Osirak reactor was never intended to be anything but a nuclear bombmaking plant.

Saddam's Bombmaker by Khidhir Hamza with Jeff Stein

[Stultis]

When Miller mentioned the murdered until Hussein, 300,000-plus was the figure he cited, she said "That is not necessarily true."

The pinko terro-symp bitch who should be waterboarded until she STFU was correct in a fashion, but of course facing 180 degrees away from the truth. Dennis only refers to the bodies actually dug up or in known graves. The total number of Iraqis missing (i.e. "disappeared") under Saddam is 1.3 MILLION or more. That doesn't include those who died in the wars Saddam started, nor those who died due to his diversion of money for food and medicine to bribes, bombs and palaces.

[50sDad]

A scientist considered the father of Iraq's nuclear program said Thursday that his nation would have developed atomic weapons in the early 1990s had Saddam Hussein not ordered the invasion of Kuwait.

CORRECTED: his nation would have developed atomic weapons in the early 1990s had the United States not crushed Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.

Hey, you Liberal boneheads...you're welcome!

[piasa]

A little more info on the scientist Jafar Dhia Jafar, though it comes from an article by Seymour Hersh, not exactly a guy known for accuracy or unbiased reporting, but he does occasionally give up useful material:

Not all the senior scientists are in captivity, however. Jafar Dhia Jafar, a British-educated physicist who coördinated Iraq’s efforts to make the bomb in the nineteen-eighties, and who had direct access to Saddam Hussein, fled Iraq in early April, before Baghdad fell, (* My note: If he wasn't involved in WMD recently, why'd he run?)

and, with the help of his brother, Hamid, the managing director of a large energy company, made his way to the United Arab Emirates.

(* My note: I wonder if this large oil company had anything to do with the Oil for Food scandal?)

According to Hersh:

Jafar has refused to return to Baghdad, but he agreed to be debriefed by C.I.A. and British intelligence agents. There were some twenty meetings, involving as many as fifteen American and British experts. The first meeting, on April 11th, began with an urgent question from a C.I.A. officer: “Does Iraq have a nuclear device? The military really want to know. They are extremely worried.” Jafar’s response, according to the notes of an eyewitness, was to laugh. The notes continued:

Jafar insisted that there was not only no bomb, but no W.M.D., period.

(* My note: Well, except for those occasional finds no one talks about much because they aren't "stockpiles"... )

“The answer was none.” . . . Jafar explained that the Iraqi leadership had set up a new committee after the 91 Gulf war, and after the unscom [United Nations] inspection process was set up. . . and the following instructions [were sent] from the Top Man [Saddam]—“give them everything.”

(* My note: Jaffar apparetly is feining ignrance on "everything" being oil voucher bribes, not WMD info. It's not as if there was any cooperation going on, folks.)

The notes said that Jafar was then asked, “But this doesn’t mean all W.M.D.? How can you be certain?” His answer was clear: “I know all the scientists involved, and they chat. There is no W.M.D.”

Wow- they're that leaky and the CIA still didn't get much intel?

Jafar explained why Saddam had decided to give up his valued weapons: Up until the 91 Gulf war, our adversaries were regional. . . . But after the war, when it was clear that we were up against the United States, Saddam understood that these weapons were redundant. “No way we could escape the United States.” Therefore, the W.M.D. warheads did Iraq little strategic good.

(* my note: It's not like they can be used for regional blackmail or anything... could they?)

Jafar had his own explanation, according to the notes, for one of the enduring mysteries of the U.N. inspection process—the six-thousand-warhead discrepancy between the number of chemical weapons thought to have been manufactured by Iraq before 1991 and the number that were accounted for by the U.N. inspection teams. It was this discrepancy which led Western intelligence officials and military planners to make the worst-case assumptions. Jafar told his interrogators that the Iraqi government had simply lied to the United Nations about the number of chemical weapons used against Iran during the brutal Iran-Iraq war in the nineteen-eighties. Iraq, he said, dropped thousands more warheads on the Iranians than it acknowledged. For that reason, Saddam preferred not to account for the weapons at all.

There are always credibility problems with witnesses from a defeated regime, and anyone involved in the creation or concealment of W.M.D.s. would have a motive to deny it. But a strong endorsement of Jafar’s integrity came from an unusual source—Jacques Baute, of the I.A.E.A., who spent much of the past decade locked in a struggle with Jafar and the other W.M.D. scientists and technicians of Iraq. “I don’t believe anybody,” Baute told me, “but, by and large, what he told us after 1995 was pretty accurate.”

(* My note: Jaques Baute the Frenchman endoreses him? Heck, let's run him for President of the world.)

[Former Proud Canadian]

Did you forget the attempted assassination of a former president of the US?

[piasa]

NO, I just got tired of typing. ;-)

[piasa]

Speaking of Iraqi scientist Jafar Dhia Jafar:

NOVEMBER 1, 1995 : (IRAQI SCIENTIST JA'AFAR DHIA JA'AFAR ARRIVES IN LIBYA TO LEAD A GROUP OF IRAQI PERSONNEL IN INSTALLING A NUCLEAR ENRICHMENT KILN) According to the Jerusalem Post, Iraqi nuclear scientist Ja'afar Dhia Ja'afar arrived in Libya to lead a group of experts and engineers from Iraqi military industries in installing a small nuclear enrichment kiln in the area of Sidi Abu Zarik, approximately 380 kilometers south of Tripoli. The Iraq-Libya cooperation allegedly began with a secret visit by Ra'ad Id Aldafi, from Libyan military industries, to Baghdad on August 30, 1995. The Jerusalem Post goes on to say that contracts for Iraqi scientists to work in Libya were passed off as contracts for these scientists to lecture in Libyan universities and institutions. Unnamed experts suggest that Iraqi nuclear fuel could reach Libya by sea within weeks, and that Iraqi experts in Libya could begin enriching it after installing more small or medium-sized kilns. —Tom O'Dwyer, "Libya Helps Iraq Dodge Weapons Supervision," The Jerusalem Post, 1 November 1995.

[Fedora]

Thanks; the Libya connection is interesting.