From: "Glenn Meadows" 

Got this sent to me today.  Posting for interest as part of this overall discussion.

By KHIDHIR HAMZA. ( a former director of Iraq's nuclear-weapons program)

My 20 years of work in Iraq's nuclear-weapons program and military industry
were partly a training course in methods of deception and camouflage to
keep the program secret. Given what I know about Saddam Hussein's
commitment to developing and using weapons of mass destruction, the
following two points are abundantly clear to me: First, the U.N. weapons
inspectors will not find anything Saddam does not want them to find.
Second, France, Germany, and to a
degree, Russia, are opposed to U.S. military action in Iraq mainly because
they maintain lucrative trade deals with! Baghdad, many of which are
arms-related.

* * *

Since the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 we have
witnessed a tiny team of inspectors with a supposedly stronger mandate
begging Iraq to disclose its weapons stockpiles and commence disarmament.
The question that nags me is: How can a team of 200 inspectors
"disarm" Iraq when 6,000 inspectors could not do so in the
previous seven years of inspection?

Put simply, surprise inspections no longer work. With the Iraqis' current
level of mobility and intelligence the whole point of inspecting sites is
moot This was made perfectly clear by Colin Powell in his presentation
before the U.N. last week. But the inspectors, mindless of these changes,
are still visiting old sites and interviewing marginal scientists. I can
assure
you, the core of Iraq's nuclear-weapons program has not even been touched.
Yesterday's news that Iraq will "accept" U-2 surveillance flights
is another sign that Saddam has confidence in his ability to hide what he's
got.

Meanwhile, the time U.N. inspectors could have used gathering intelligence
by interviewing scientists outside Iraq is running out. The problem is that
there is nothing Saddam can declare that will provide any level of
assurance of disarmament. If he delivers the 8,500 liters of anthrax that
he now admits to having, he will still not be in compliance because the
growth media he imported to grow it can produce 25,000 liters. Iraq must
account for the growth media and its products; it is doing neither.

Iraq's attempt to import aluminum tubes of higher tensile strength than is
needed in conventional weapons has been brushed aside by the IAEA's
Mohammed El-Baradei. He claims there is no proof that these tubes were
intended for modification and use in centrifuges to make enriched uranium.
Yet he fails to report that Iraq has the machining equipment to thin these
tubes down to the required thickness (less than one millimeter)! For an
efficient centrifuge rotor. What's more, they don't find it suspect that
Iraq did not deliver all the computer controlled machining equipment that
it imported from the British-based, Iraqi-owned Matrix-Churchill that
manufacture these units?

Mr. Blix also discounted the discovery of a number of "empty"
chemical-weapons warheads. What he failed to mention is that empty is the
only way to store these weapon parts. The warheads in question were not
designed to store chemicals for long periods. They have a much higher
possibility of leakage and corrosion than conventional warheads. Separate
storage for the poisons is a standard practice in Iraq, since the Special
Security Organization that guards Saddam also controls the storage and
inventory of these chemicals.

What has become obvious is that the U.N. inspection process was designed to
delay any possible U.S. military action to disarm Iraq? Germany, France,
and Russia, states we called "friendly" when I was in Baghdad,
are also engaged in a strategy of delay and obstruction.

In the two decades before the Gulf War, I played a role in Iraq's efforts
to acquire major technologies from friendly states. In 1974, I headed an
Iraqi delegation to France to purchase a nuclear reactor. It was a
40-megawatt research reactor that our sources in the IAEA told us should
cost no more than $50 million. But the French deal ended up costing Baghdad
more than
$200 million. The French-controlled Habbania Resort project cost Baghdad a
whopping $750 million, and with the same huge profit margin. With these
kinds of deals coming their way, is it any surprise that the French are so
desperate to save Saddam's regime?

Germany was the hub of Iraq's military purchases in the 1980s. Our
commercial attach‚, Ali Abdul Mutalib, was allocated billions of dollars to
spend each year on German military industry imports. These imports included
many proscribed technologies with the German government not looking the
other way. In 1989, German engineer Karl Schaab sold us classified
technology to build and operate the centrifuges we needed for our
uranium-enrichment program.

German authorities have since found Mr. Schaab guilty of selling nuclear
secrets, but because the technology was considered "dual use" he
was fined only $32,000 and given five years probation.

Meanwhile, other German firms have provided Iraq with the technology it
needs to make missile parts. Mr. Blix's recent finding that Iraq is trying
to enlarge the diameter of its missiles to a size capable of delivering
nuclear weapons would not be feasible without this technology transfer.

Russia has long been a major supplier of conventional armaments to Iraq  --
yet again at exorbitant prices. Even the Kalashnikov rifles used by the
Iraqi forces are sold to Iraq at several times the price of comparable guns
sold by
other suppliers.

* * *

Saddam's policy of squandering Iraq's resources! by paying outrageous
prices to friendly states seems to be paying off. The irresponsibility and
lack of morality these states are displaying in trying to keep the world's
worst butcher in power is perhaps indicative of a new world order. It is a
world of winks and nods to emerging rogue states -- for a price. It remains
for the U.S. and its allies to institute an opposing order in which no
price is high enough for dictators like Saddam to thrive.

Mr. Hamza, a former director of Iraq's nuclear-weapons program, is the
co-author of "Saddam's Bombmaker: The Terrifying Inside Story of the
Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda" (Scribner, 2000).

Updated February 11, 2003


--
Glenn M.


"Geo."  wrote in message
news:3e52dd82$1{at}w3.nls.net...
> "Adam Flinton"  wrote in message
> news:3e5205fe$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>
> > He may not have the proof (might have already fired the warheads or
> > destroyed them) but they don't know that for sure. I get the feeling
they
> > are are wanting proof of destruction at a very specific level (e.g.
"Have
> > the destoyed all the chem GBU'es we sent them....?" )
>
> I don't think so, I think they know something specific and that's shaping
> their view of all the stuff they don't know for sure.
>
> > > Imagine the administration coming out and saying now you know what we
> were
> > > so worried about..
> > >
> >
> > True. What's more noone can throw up their arms & go
"ain't nutting 2 du
> wiv
> > us" as.....everyone pace G Bush II was involved in Reagan's
love-in with
> > Saddam.
>
> Doesn't matter, if we view Saddam as our creation then we must view him as
> our responsibility now.
>
> > No you didn't (thank God). Bizarrely.....that was the French (sell
> anything
> > to anyone the froggies...hell they gave/sold arms to the American
> > colonists/terrorists..).
>
> Fine, we bought them from the french for the israelis (it was our money
that
> purchased them).
>
> > Also I am unaware of Iraq suddenly turning on you &
threatening you with
> > those nukes even if they had em. Didn't threaten the USA with Chem or
Bio
> > either. In fact no proof they've gone looking for a fight with the USA
> > ever....
>
> He doesn't have to threaten us, he used them on his own people which is
> something that's really taboo in this country. (we are big on citizens
here,
> you don't do that to your own people with our help or our citizens get
real
> upset and want it stopped) Having the kurds fleeing into the mountains as
> winter set in on national TV right after the Gulf war had a serious affect
> on the attitudes in this county about Saddam. Many of us think that's a
good
> enough reason to go after the asshole, but we would like to see it settled
> with a single bullet.
>
> Geo.
>
>

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