Iraq Scientists: Lied About Nuke Weapons

[leftchick]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=2&u=/ap/20031130/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_bombmakers


<snip>
Before that first Gulf War (news - web sites), the chief of the weapons program resorted to "blatant exaggeration" in telling Iraq (news - web sites)'s president how much bomb material was being produced, key scientist Imad Khadduri writes in a new book.

Other leading physicists, in Baghdad interviews, said the hope for an Iraqi atomic bomb was never realistic. "It was all like building sand castles," said Abdel Mehdi Talib, Baghdad University's dean of sciences.

Seven months after a U.S.-British invasion toppled Saddam's Baath Party government, Iraqi scientists have grown more vocal in countering Bush administration claims, used to justify the war, that Baghdad had "reconstituted" nuclear weapons development, and that it once was a mere six months from making a bomb.


At best, Khadduri writes, it would have taken Iraq several years to build a nuclear weapon if the 1991 war and subsequent U.N. inspections had not intervened.

His self-published "Iraq's Nuclear Mirage," a chronicle of years of secret weapons work and of a final escape into exile, is part of this senior scientist's emergence from a low profile in Canada — intended to refute what he calls a "massive deception" in Washington that led the United States into war.

Months of searching by hundreds of U.S. experts have found no trace of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in Iraq, just as U.N. inspectors found none before the war. No Iraqi scientists have confirmed the programs were revived in recent years.

Bush administration officials still speak, nonetheless, of a threat from such weapons — of Baghdad's "robust plans" for them, as Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) puts it — in defending last March's U.S. invasion of Iraq. They offer no hard evidence, however.

[DeathvadeR]

1. Of course you lie.......

They were sitting on the 2nd biggest oil supply on the planet, Yopu would do what ever it takes to detour an invasion from thug Nations like the US.

[Zhade]

2. Khadduri is very credible. I've spoken with him, very honest.

He writes for Yellow Times, and has debunked that lying fool who calls himself "Saddam's Bombmaker" several times.

[Dudley_DUright]

5. Yup, Khidhir Hamza (Saddam's so called bombmaker)

was and is a lying POS. Here is an article by Khadduri from Yellow Times that make this very clear.

http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1623

[sistersofmercy]

7. I believe he wrote an article for global research about this and

cited the interrogation of Hussein Kamel, where HK actually told interrogators there were no WMD. It certainly answers the question as to why HK did not receive political asylum and headed back to Iraqi.

[loudnclear]

3. If our "intelligence" could not know about this exxageration that is just

as bad. i still believe that we chose to believe intelligence that supported an Iraqi invasion..true or not...verifiable or not...and most of that bogus intelligence came from our chief ally in the ME, Israel.

[cosmicaug]

6. Indeed, it's been one of the arguments of the apologists

If our "intelligence" could not know about this exxageration that is just as bad.

And, indeed, after a while it's become one of the arguments used by the apologists for the war. You have to realize, however, that Khadduri et al are talking about the early 90's.

In other words, we've been lied to regarding the threat by an administration portraying Gulf War I vintage intelligence as current when, in fact, even some of that intelligence was exagerated in the first place (though, for a change, some of it was actually exagerated by the administration of Saddam Husein back then and not just by our administration).

But yes, you should count on war advocates ignoring the above and further seizing on this sort of thing as support for the war.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

8. IMHO, there appears to be at least two different factions at work...

...with regards to the intelligence data the NeoCon Junta has used to justify attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq.

On one side is the CIA who has stated all along that there was no documentation and/or other hard evidence to support the idea that Iraq had WMDs. They repeatedly warned the Junta not to use certain wording in their public statements/speeches.

On the other side of the coin, the NeoCons were ready to say and do anything to convince the American public that the terrorists in Afganistan had acquired WMDs, and that Iraq was not only producing WMDs but was making them available to Al Qaeda. The NeoCons were allegedly using the intelligence reports of the OSP, a newly founded organization reporting to the Pentagon. OSP was created when it became clear to the NeoCons that the CIA was not going to give them all that they needed in terms of a reason for war. Rumsfeld had originally attempted to force the CIA to report to his organization, but when that didn't work, the OSP was born. Because of shared beliefs and plans, the working relationship between the NeoCon's OSP and Israel's Mossad must be so close as to be nearly indistiguishable from each other...virtually two sides of the same coin.

Additionally, there have been repeated attempts by the NeoCons to discredit the CIA's intelligence findings, even to the point of now trying to blame the CIA for the "green-light for war" estimates provided by the OSP itself. I also believe that the outing of Valerie Plame, which also completely compromised her intelligence-gathering network which tracked WMD components around the world, was not only an attempt to gain revenge for her husband's public comments, but was also part of the overall plan to destroy or diminish the CIA's credibility. This has been resisted through the steady leaks of various bits of information to the media concerning the history of the Bush family and other so-called "insider' secrets, all designed to slowly but surely discredit Junior and the NeoCons.

The fight's not over by a long shot, but the NeoCon Junta is finding it increasingly more difficult to maintain control.

[Terwilliger]

4. incentives

Iraqi scientists, newly captured by the US and facing interrogation, are told by their handlers to spill the beans about Iraq's weapons program. They're told "Tell us the truth, but if there's anything you might want to add, I'm sure you (Iraqi scientist) will get more out of us" Iraqis will tell the interroagtors that Saddam is ready to launch on New York to get into high-favor with the questioners and with the US powers that be.