Monday, May 05, 2003

A former Iraqi nuclear scientist is offering to return to Iraq and aid in the search for WMD.

"I have no doubt that Saddam had some weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) hidden in remote areas for future development and/ or use, especially new chemical agents such as VX nerve gas or bacterialogical cultures (and their growth media) that can be turned into weapons.

"The UN failed miserably in its latest attempts to locate them because the WMD were not in a specific factory or building that are visible or known.

"Saddam was a master of deception and denials," said Dr George. "The only way to locate these WMDs or their precursors is to interview the captured/surrendered Iraqi scientists and managers.

"Many exiled Iraqi scientists like myself speak Arabic and worked in at least one establishment that was involved in Saddam's evil weapons programmes.

"I offered to go to Iraq during the second week of the war. I do not require military or chemical training. I can go tomorrow.

"I am a Christian, therefore I have absolutely no political ambitions in Iraq. Nor do I wish to relocate there. I live in the greatest country, proud to be married for 28 years to a Huddersfield lady.

"I will be very proud to help rebuild my place of birth by ridding it from the WMDs. I do not fear any consequences in going back for a while, even though I was sentenced to death in 1982."

What does he think of the UN Weapons Inspectors.

Dr George, now a chemical and environmental consultant based in Rochester, said many of the UN inspectors lacked the experience and expertise to detect chemical and biological agents.

In addition, the UN inspection team never sought the help of exiled Iraqi scientists such as Dr George who had insider insights.

"Saddam was smarter than them. I say their incompetence caused the war," he said.

Dr George described his worst experience in Iraq as a visit to an agricultural research centre that had hidden, underground torture chambers. Prisoners were being injected with and exposed to doses of radiation that caused horrific deaths.

He also recalled that in 1981 he was told to fool an inspector from the International Atomic Energy Administration. Dr George hid a nuclear reactor's uranium in a swimming pool and spread radioactive dust, to make it seem that Israeli bombing had destroyed the nuclear material.

"The inspector spent about 30 minutes perusing the material and filling out paper work, then left.

"The `dirty' bomb was invented by Saddam's regime as a psychological weapon of terror, not as a poor man's version of a nuclear weapon.

"I believe his regime was working on the weaponisation of nuclear materials, but had not created nuclear warheads."

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