Khidhir Hamza: Bush's Bogus Iraqi Intelligence Source

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Khidhir Hamza: The Bogus Intelligence Source

Former Iraqi nuclear scientist Imad Khadduri writes: "Belatedly, in a September 29, 2003 article in the New York Times by Douglas Jehl, the Defense Intelligence Agency has awkwardly admitted that most of the intelligence and information offered by the Iraqi National Congress (INC) for the past several years, which was provided by Iraqi defectors of questionable credibility, was of little to no value, all at a cost of $150 billion, more than 300 dead American soldiers, and at least 10,000 dead Iraqi civilians. A prominent and callous epithet of such defectors mentioned in the above article is Khidhir Hamza, the self-claimed Iraqi atomic 'Bomb Maker.' Given a short lived assignment in the Iraqi nuclear program in 1987 to lead the atomic bomb design team, he was kicked out a few months later for petty theft... He retired from the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission in 1989 and became a college lecturer, a stock market swindler and a shady business middle-man."


http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1623



''Khidhir Hamza: The bogus intelligence source''

Printed on Wednesday, October 15, 2003

By Imad Khadduri
Former Iraqi nuclear scientist
YellowTimes.org Guest Columnist (Canada)

(YellowTimes.org) -- Belatedly, in a September 29, 2003 article in the New York Times by Douglas Jehl, the Defense Intelligence Agency has awkwardly admitted that most of the intelligence and information offered by the Iraqi National Congress (INC) for the past several years, which was provided by Iraqi defectors of questionable credibility, was of little to no value, all at a cost of $150 billion, more than 300 dead American soldiers, and at least 10,000 dead Iraqi civilians.

A prominent and callous epithet of such defectors mentioned in the above article is Khidhir Hamza, the self-claimed Iraqi atomic "Bomb Maker." Given a short lived assignment in the Iraqi nuclear program in 1987 to lead the atomic bomb design team, he was kicked out a few months later for petty theft. Reduced to a non-entity in the accelerated nuclear weapons program between 1987 and the start of the 1991 war, he retired from the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission in 1989 and became a college lecturer, a stock market swindler and a shady business middle-man.

Upon his escape from Iraq in 1994, leaving his family behind, he was shunned asylum by the Iraqi opposition groups themselves, the CIA and the British intelligence agencies that were supporting these groups.

Seeking refuge as a lecturer in Libya, he still managed, through the INC, to initiate his usefulness to them by the publication of a series of three articles in the British Sunday Times in 1995 claiming through fake documents supplied by "authoritative sources" that Iraq was currently making atomic bombs. The Sunday Times passed them on to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for its valuation, but decided not to report the IAEA's findings that the documents were "not authentic." The Sunday Times has not yet acknowledged using forgeries in their stories about Iraq's supposed nuclear weapons.

Panicking after his son's arrival to Libya in order to appeal with him to return to Iraq to protect his family, he once again knocked on the doors of the IAEA, the INC and the CIA, but to no avail.

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http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0208/S00013.htm

Firas Al-Atraqchi: Who is Khidhir Hamza?

Friday, 2 August 2002, 6:38 pm


It's all about money and exposure.

This week Khidhir Hamza, a former Iraqi nuclear scientist who defected to the U.S. in 1994, testified before a U.S. Senate panel investigating Iraq's nuclear armaments. Hamza told U.S. Senators that Iraq was three years away from creating up to three atomic bombs. Containment would not work with Iraq, Hamza claims. He strongly suggested regime change.

Hamza was joined by famed Oscar-nominee (former UNSCOM weapons inspector) Richard Butler. Butler so vehemently implicated Iraq behind the anthrax spread last fall that CNN rewarded him with a permanent chair next to the 'sexy' Paula Zahn. Since then no evidence has emerged that implicates Iraq or any foreign country. In fact, recent news reports seem to indicate that the anthrax spores were home grown.

There are some facts to consider about Hamza: The first; that he has not been in Iraq since 1994. Eight years out of the country and the man thinks he is an expert. The UNSCOM team acknowledge that their absence from Iraq for four years has made them blind to Iraqi activities. So, then, where is Hamza getting his information? I, for one, would like to see it. Quoting 'other' intelligence sources is not enough. Secondly, Hamza is one of hundreds of prominent Iraqi scientists and engineers. The man, by far, does not hold exclusive knowledge to Iraq's weapons programs.

Hamza is also a Shiite. Let's dispense with the pleasantries; most Shiites in Iraq would love to see Saddam go and outside Iraq make no secret their hatred for Sunnis. A popular catch phrase repeated by Iraqi Shiites is "We will murder all you Sunnis while you sleep".

Consider also, Hamza's flair for misinformation and contradiction. In January 1999, Hamza addressed the Seventh Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference (Carnegie Endowment For International Peace Non-Proliferation Project - January 11-12, 1999; Washington, D.C.):


MORE.......and more contradictions & fabrications by this con man.....

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So, who are you again Mr. Hamza?

According to Scott Ritter, UNSCOM's most aggressive former weapons inspector, who appeared on a July 31st edition of CNN's Crossfire, you are a liar.

http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2002/Khidhir-Hamza-Lies27nov02.htm

IMAD KHADDURI / YellowTimes.org Guest Columnist (Canada) 27nov02


The book "Saddam's Bombmaker," recently published by Khidhir Hamza, recounted the author's 22 years of experience with the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC). Hamza exaggerated to a great extent his own role in the nuclear weapon program. As I personally know the author and have worked with him during these two decades, I wish to clarify the following untruths and misinformation that has been postulated by him in his book.


There is a huge difference between those who worked with the government for scientific and professional reasons despite being under the sharp sword of government security agencies, and those who try to hide their fear with a fig leaf. A few scientists who believed in their work realized the slippery road they were treading and tried to leave before and after the 1991 Gulf War. While some were able to flee Iraq, others, such as Dr. Al Shahrastsani (who was also charged with other offenses), ceased his work despite the penalty of death given to such rebellious actions.

But when the bells of fear first started to ring in Hamza's mind in 1974, when he prepared the first nuclear weapons project report at the request of the government, he decided to stay in Iraq until it was convenient for him to go abroad. In the '70s and '80s, it would have been much easier and less risky to leave, yet he wallowed in Iraq in nice Mercedes cars while attending scientific conventions with lavish stipends. He kept deluding himself, as he naively mentions in his book, that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IEAE) or the CIA would contact him and magically whisk him out of Iraq as if on a flying carpet.

Even though he was the head of the physics department in the nuclear research center for ten years during the seventies, his deep inner fear of radiation prevented him from ever entering the reactor hall or touching any scientific gadgets, probably due to his continual fear of an electric jolt that he experienced as a child, as his book mentions.

Hamza's aversion to scientific experimentation drove him to insist on working solely on the highly theoretical three-body-problem during the seventies, far removed from any of the initial work on fission that was carried on during that period at the Iraqi Nuclear Research Center. He did not, even remotely, get involved in any scientific research, except for journalistic articles, dealing with the fission bomb, its components or its effects. The testimony to this is the recorded archive of the IAEC for the seventies that point to the efforts of others in this field, and none to the self-proclaimed "bombmaker."

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