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Nuclear program materials still buried { June 26 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33828-2003Jun25.html?nav=hptop_tshttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33828-2003Jun25.html?nav=hptop_ts
Iraqi Scientist Turns Over Nuclear Plans, Parts
Former Head of Uranium Enrichment Program Had Buried Material in Yard After 1991 Gulf War
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 26, 2003; Page A14
A former Iraqi nuclear scientist has given U.S. intelligence officials a new lead in their search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction: a trove of blueprints and parts he says were buried 12 years ago for use in the event that Saddam Hussein resumed his quest for a nuclear bomb, a nuclear research group and Bush administration officials said yesterday.
Mahdi Obeidi, who headed Iraq's uranium enrichment program in the late 1980s and early 1990s, turned over the documents to U.S. officials in Baghdad voluntarily and is now assisting the investigation of Iraq's former weapons program, according to officials of the Institute for Science and International Security, a nonprofit research group that advised the scientist in his decision to surrender the materials to the U.S. government.
Obeidi supplied U.S. officials with several components of a gas centrifuge, a machine used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, along with design plans for the machines, the institute's assistant director, Corey Hinderstein, said yesterday. The scientist, who contacted the group in late April, said he buried the materials in his yard in 1991 under orders from Hussein's son, Qusay.
"If the order was given, these documents and materials could be used to restart the program," Hinderstein said. She added: "Obeidi did not receive that order."
Despite assertions by Bush administration officials before the war that Iraq was rebuilding a nuclear program, U.S. officials have so far found no evidence that Hussein had reconstituted the advanced nuclear weapons program he developed throughout the 1970s and 1980s. That program, which included the construction of several facilities for enriching uranium, was dismantled in the early 1990s by coalition forces and by inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
Still, the discovery of buried blueprints and centrifuge parts earlier this month appeared to confirm suspicions that Hussein was prepared to resume his quest for prohibited weapons in the future, perhaps after the lifting of sanctions against Iraq.
CNN and NBC first reported yesterday the discovery of the blueprints and parts.
Gas centrifuges are fast-spinning machines used to process uranium into fissile material needed for nuclear weapons. Producing enough fissile material for a single nuclear weapon would require the use of hundreds of centrifuges working constantly for up to a year.
Hinderstein said the blueprints provided by Obeidi would have saved Iraq considerable time if Hussein had decided to restart his nuclear program.
"They would not have to start from scratch," she said. "Iraq would still have been years from making a weapon. But they would have saved themselves time, on the order of years."
In an interview with CNN broadcast yesterday, Obeidi said he decided to turn the materials over to U.S. officials in part to encourage other Iraqi scientists to cooperate.
"I have very important things at my disposal that I have been ordered to have, to keep, and I've kept them," Obeidi said in the interview. "And I don't want this to proliferate, because of the potential consequences, if it falls in the hands of tyrants, in the hands of dictators or of terrorists."
A senior administration official said the parts and about two feet of documents were turned over to the CIA this month. He said U.S. officials consider this a "significant development" that demonstrates the challenge of uncovering Iraq's weapons and programs. "We can't dig up every garden in the country," he said.
He confirmed that the Iraqi scientist said the material was hidden after the Persian Gulf War but before inspectors arrived. The idea was to give Iraq "a leg up and save millions of dollars" if the nuclear weapons program were ever reconstituted.
Staff writer Walter Pincus contributed to this report.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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