|
Iraq WMD
|
View this Thread in Original format
| intrinsic |
this just on CNN.com
BREAKING NEWS Iraqi scientist turns over centrifuge, needed to develop nuclear bomb, that had been hidden in Baghdad. Details soon.
im anxious to see what cnn and others say... |
|
|
| Shakka |
| quote: | Nuke component unearthed in Baghdad back yard
From David Ensor
CNN Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON (CNN) --The CIA has in its hands the critical parts of a key piece of Iraqi nuclear technology -- parts needed to develop a bomb program -- that were dug up in a back yard in Baghdad, CNN has learned.
The parts were unearthed by Iraqi scientist Mahdi Obeidi who had hidden them in his back yard under a rose bush 12 years ago under orders from Qusay Hussein and Saddam Hussein's then son-in-law, Hussein Kamel.
U.S. officials emphasized this was not evidence Iraq had a nuclear weapon -- but it was evidence the Iraqis concealed plans to reconstitute their nuclear program as soon as the world was no longer looking.
The parts and documents Obeidi gave the CIA were shown exclusively to CNN at CIA headquarters in Virginia.
Obeidi told CNN the parts of a gas centrifuge system for enriching uranium were part of a highly sophisticated system he was ordered to hide so as to be ready to rebuild the bomb program at some time in the future.
"I have very important things at my disposal that I have been ordered to have, to keep, and I've kept them, and I don't want this to proliferate, because of its potential consequences if it falls in the hands of tyrants, in the hands of dictators or of terrorists," said Obeidi, who has been taken out of Iraq with the help of the U.S. government.
Centrifuges are drums or cylinders that spin at high speed and separate heavy and light molecules, allowing increasingly enriched uranium to be drawn off.
Former U.N. arms inspector David Kay, now in charge of the CIA search for unconventional weapons, started work two days ago in Baghdad. CNN spoke to him about the case over a secure teleconferencing line.
"It begins to tell us how huge our job is," Kay said. "Remember, his material was buried in a barrel behind his house in a rose garden. There's no way that that would have been discovered by normal international inspections. I couldn't have done it. My successors couldn't have done it."
CNN had this story last week but made a decision to withhold it at the request of the U.S. government, which cited safety and national security concerns.
The U.S. government told CNN the security and safety issues have been dealt with and there is no risk now in telling the story fully.
The gas centrifuge equipment dates to Iraq's pre-1991 efforts to build nuclear weapons.
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.
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 is safe, Obeidi said he believes other scientists would come forward with other components of Iraq's weapons program.
CNN National Correspondent Mike Boettcher contributed to this report.
|
Some non-believers would say the evidence was planted!! Bahahha:stongue: |
|
|
| JohnSmith |
could be, you never know.
if it wasn't planted, and the story is true, and it was a centrifuge buried someones back yard 12 years ago, then ask yourself was it worth thousands of innocent deaths, the further dragging through the mud of the US name, the further polarization of religious conflicts on the planet, the rendering irrelevant of the UN?
when one of the most brutal men in the world was so afraid that someone would find it he ordered it buried under a rose bush?
when it probably didn't even work? when any radioactive material produced by it would have been instantly detected?
imo, the risks still outweigh the costs. then again, i have a black widow crawling around somewhere in my house. |
|
|
| mikefasssy |
| quote: | Originally posted by JohnSmith
then again, i have a black widow crawling around somewhere in my house. |
eep! |
|
|
| DrummeRaver86 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Shakka
Some non-believers would say the evidence was planted!! Bahahha:stongue: |
It has been done before, don't doubt the possibility. |
|
|
| Galapidate |
| say John, are you going to call an exterminator about that black widow? I think it gets a bit more dangerous each day it lives. |
|
|
| DrummeRaver86 |
| yeah, it gets hungrier and hungrier and has the urge to feast on bigger and bigger things.....OH NO!!! IT'S BEHIND YOU!!!!!!!!!! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: |
|
|
| DrUg_Tit0 |
| Well it's no secret Iraq was trying to make wmds and nukes. But the fact is it hasn't succeeded, and the program has been halted ever since the loss in the first gulf war. Btw, did the centrifuges have the "Made in USA" stamp on them? |
|
|
| occrider |
| quote: |
Boettcher: Iraqis possibly 3 years from bomb
Wednesday, June 25, 2003 Posted: 9:32 PM EDT (0132 GMT)
(CNN) -- U.S. officials emphasized Wednesday that the discovery of bomb parts and documents in Baghdad was not a smoking gun that Iraq had a nuclear weapon -- but it was evidence Iraqis concealed plans to reconstitute their nuclear program as soon as the world was no longer looking.
In a talk with CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, Correspondent Mike Boettcher offers more on the story from an undisclosed location in the Middle East.
DOBBS: Now a lot of controversy has followed the discovery of ... [those] mobile labs or what appeared to be chemical agents, and a lot of controversy over the actual use and content of those elements. What more can you tell us about the apparent apparatus that would have been helpful to the nuclear weapons program?
BOETTCHER: Well, they were sample components for a gas centrifuge. Now, this is a piece of equipment that can enrich uranium and make it bomb grade. What is known now by the CIA and other U.S. government officials ... is that the Iraqis, No. 1, were way ahead in developing this program, could have put it together with the components they had and the information in about three years, according to top nuclear scientists.
On the other hand, the scientist [Mahdi Obeidi] who turned it over to them said that there was no program after '91, that he was ordered in 1991, and other top nuclear scientists, to take various components and kits, as they were called, with the various plans and diagrams for this centrifuge and hide them.
He hid it under a rose bush in a barrel in his garden, and there it stayed for 12 years, and there he lied about it for 12 years until Baghdad fell to coalition forces, and at that point he decided he wanted to cooperate with the United States, and he did.
DOBBS: This raises the question [of whether there are] other scientists perhaps with other pieces of equipment that would be relevant to a nuclear program, perhaps a biochemical program. Is there any indication from Obeidi or from your sources in the CIA that this is going to be a broader opening?
BOETTCHER: Well, in Obeidi's view, he believes it will be broader because he says other scientists are watching what happens to him. He says others are willing to come forward, but they want to see how the U.S. is going to treat him. Is he going to be tried as a war criminal, which it appears he won't be. Is he going to be held in custody?
On the other hand, will his family be given safety? Will he be taken somewhere where he can give information and then start a new life? He believes this is called the soft touch, and he believes this is the way to deal with Iraqi scientists. He believes since he has successfully turned over this information and left the country and is cooperating, that other scientists will follow suit.
He says when he went in 1991 to pick up that particular gas centrifuge kit, as he called it, there were three others there at the office he went to, and he doesn't know where those three others are, although he's given information to the U.S. about scientists that they may want to question about those other three kits.
DOBBS: Are there any other purpose for this material that Obeidi has turned over to the United States?
BOETTCHER: No, it's not dual use. He says precisely that this was to make a gas centrifuge to enrich uranium. It would have taken several dozen of them to enrich enough uranium in a period that would have taken about a year or so once they had that gas centrifuge built.
He believes that would have taken maybe another two years or so. So a total program of two to three and a half years. And he believes it was kept solely for the purpose of reconstituting the program once Saddam thought it was safe.
In terms of other programs, other weapons of mass destruction, biological or chemical, he says he does not have any information on that. And he says that the entire nuclear program was basically inactive, he believes, for the last 12 years, although he did reveal tonight when I spoke to him that in 2002 there may have been a parallel plan to conceptually bring back that gas centrifuge program, a plan to perhaps take this forward to its step when Saddam thought it was safe to try to build a bomb again.
|
Well if other scientists start coming forward as stipulated then I'll start believing conspiracy theories that these things were planted less and less. Plus if the IAEA inspects the components they'll probably be able to offer definitive analysis to prove whether these components were indeed buried underground for a period of 12 years or not. But the question is ... if this is indeed authentic, what else is buried in the middle of nowhere?
I'm not going to get too excited over this yet. I think we've been through too many phony wmd announcements ... i'll wait to see how this develops. |
|
|
| Shakka |
| quote: | Originally posted by JohnSmith
then ask yourself was it worth thousands of innocent deaths... |
Which thousands were you referring to? The many thousands that died under Hussein's rule or the comparatively fractional amount lost in the short war that was fought? |
|
|
| LiquidX |
| LOOOOOOOL 12 years ago....... COME ON!!!!!!! that was what.. 91??? Probably the US gave them the KEYS before they started.. lets not forget Rumsfeld friendly hand shakes with Saddam and the war with Iran. |
|
|
| DrummeRaver86 |
| quote: | Originally posted by LiquidX
LOOOOOOOL 12 years ago....... COME ON!!!!!!! that was what.. 91??? Probably the US gave them the KEYS before they started.. lets not forget Rumsfeld friendly hand shakes with Saddam and the war with Iran. |
This post definitely confuses me.:conf: :conf: |
|
|
|
|
