Iraqi scientist spills secrets

[cal04]

AN Iraqi scientist-turned-author says the most significant pieces of his country's dormant nuclear program were buried under a lotus tree in his backyard, untouched for more than a decade before the US-led invasion in 2003.

But their existence, Mahdi Obeidi writes in a new book, is evidence that the international community should remain vigilant as other countries try to replicate Iraq's successes before the 1991 Gulf war to develop components necessary for a nuclear weapon.

In The Bomb in my Garden, Obeidi details fallen Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's furious, and then abandoned, quest for a nuclear bomb.

"Although Saddam never had nuclear weapons at his disposal, the story of how close Iraq came to developing them should serve as a red flag to the international community," Obeidi writes with his co-author Kurt Pitzer. The Associated Press obtained an advance copy of the book, to be released Sunday.

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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,10863820%255E1702,00.html

[smirkymonkey]

1. Ooo. A Lotus Tree.

Who knew?

[patdem]

2. You mean all those factories and appearing and disappearing trucks

were just a diversion so the spy satellites did not focus on the lotus tree of mass destruction...WOW...Sadaam was one brilliant dictator...whod of known INDEED! :silly:

[KlatooBNikto]

3. I thought a Lotus grew in a pond.This is the first time I have heard of a

lotus tree.Mysterious Lotus Bombs courtesy of SH.

[alfredo]

7. It is a shrub that grows in

that part of the world.

Due to the radiation, this shrub speaks through a small weasel growing from an eyeball on the trunk.

[bahrbearian]

9. Do you think Shrub speaks Weasle ?

[alfredo]

12. most certainly

With a fake Texas drawl

[Eye and Monkey]

13. Lotus Tree = Weasel Bush - it's code. See, Chimpie was not joking

when he was looking around under the furniture in Pres. Gore's office.

[jayfish]

4. Well If What He Says Is True...

and if what we are told about Saddam is correct, more than his secrets would have been spilled long ago.

Jay

[Ediacara]

5. So.... untouched for more than a decade before the US-led invasion in 2003

Does that mean that they've found WMD? That they've found his Lotus Tree? Or does "the most significant pieces of his country's dormant nuclear program" consist of a geiger counter?

[cal04]

6. I seem to remember this story

The parts, with accompanying plans, were unearthed by Iraqi scientist Mahdi Obeidi who had hidden them under a rose bush in his garden 12 years ago under orders from Qusay Hussein and Saddam Hussein's then son-in-law, Hussein Kamel.

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.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/06/25/sprj.irq.centrifuge/

[PATRICK]

14. So he turned this rusted out crap into a book

What took him so long? That is my only question. That junk in his garden was not protected at all, but allowed to decompose. It was part of the secret cleansing program, sloppily done. The point of this book- and the reason it was delayed- was to take advantage of the memory hole and not run it into the question of why we have done practically nothing about the massive proliferation program via Pakistan.

They must have an Alzheimer's timetable on public attention, media memory and the inability to make any connections not spelled out by our power gods.

[Mountainman]

8. Well then, Saddam had intended to make nuclear weapons prior to '91

so all this death and destruction makes sense. Damn Bush is a smart leader.

[Gregorian]

10. Behind every bush, there could be a BOMB.

One never knows- maybe your neighbor; your mother; your friend. Anyone could be a terrorist. The whole world could be like one big episode of COPS. Tear the whole place apart. We will make you talk. We will find the bombs. Everyone is a bogeyman, now. Won't that make the military contractors giddy with glee. The world is their bomb, um, I mean, oyster.

[bobbyboucher]

11. I ate the lotus.

Uh oh.