Khidhir Hamza: Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi weapons program
[there is a lot more online - cnn.com ]
Dr. Khidhir Hamza was educated in the United States, then was deceptively persuaded to return to Iraq by Saddam Hussein, where for over 20 years he was forced to work at developing an atomic weapon. In 1994, he defected to the U.S. Embassy in Hungary. Dr. Hamza now works as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Energy, and is the author of "Saddam's Bomb Maker: The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda." Hamza joined the CNN.com chat room to discuss the Iraqi weapons program and Saddam Hussein.
CNN: How did Hussein intend to use the weapon, once it was completed?
HAMZA: Saddam has a whole range of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, biological and chemical. The nuclear program is his primary weapon, and that would give him the ability to use the biological and chemical better. According to German intelligence estimates, we expect him to have three nuclear weapons by 2005. So, the window (actually, he's being careful right now), will close by 2005, and we expect him then to be a lot more aggressive with his neighbors and encouraging terrorism, and using biological weapons. Now he's using them through surrogates like al Qaeda, but we expect he'll use them more aggressively then. There could also be the angle of him using nuclear weapons through surrogates also, if he can achieve it.
CHAT PARTICIPANT: Is it possible that Saddam or Iraq is supplying the terrorist with the biological agents that are being found in different parts of our country as well as the world?
HAMZA: I believe he [could be]. There are several points that indicate that the biological agents used are of the more sophisticated kind, and that a state is behind it. The states that produce anthrax and the required specs that can be used to spread the disease widely, say in the powder form, very few states can do that. The others are not U.S. antagonists, like Russia, some of the European countries, and the U.S. So it could only be that Iraq is the state behind supplying that expertise, which is the same thing as producing the anthrax spores. There are also many biologists that inspected the Iraq programs, like Dr. Richard Spertzel, including Richard Butler, the head of ANSCAM. There are several experts, not just me, who have detailed knowledge, who are pointing fingers toward Iraq, too.
CHAT PARTICIPANT: Did the U.S. succeed in getting rid of many of his weapons over the years the teams were there?
HAMZA: This is a false security. The security of taking a number of equipment from a state and destroying them, leaving the total infrastructure, the knowledge base, the scientist, the military structure intact, only means that the state will just rejuvenate its program, especially a state with huge resources, like Iraq. The whole structure of the biological program is there. What the U.S. destroyed is some of the product, biological agents, some fermenters, and some dryers, which can be replaced very easily, and most of them actually through local engineering capability.
Much of the precision machinery, computer-controlled machines that can machine anything you want, are already there. They were not delivered to the inspectors, so Iraq can easily, and probably already did, remake the destroyed equipment and put them in place, but in different locations than those the inspectors knew. So, we believe it was a false security to just destroy a few pieces of equipment, and take away some of the weaponized agents, and believe that's it. The scientists are there, the agents are there, and most of the infrastructure is there in addition to Saddam's network of purchasing agents and front companies that can smuggle back into Iraq the needed critical parts.
HAMZA: Just that this is the new probably type of war the U.S. will be waging. The U.S. is too powerful to fight directly by terrorists like Saddam. [They] tried once and failed miserably, in the Gulf War. So the efforts and energies of people like Saddam will be channeled to these types of dirty terrorist acts. |
