Scientist: Iraq was on brink of nuclear bomb

A former Iraqi nuclear scientist told a crowd here that Iraq was on the brink of having a nuclear bomb just before the 1991 invasion of the country by U.S. and allied forces.

Mahdi Obeidi, who worked under Saddam Hussein, spoke to a full house gathered at the World Nuclear University Summer Institute Monday

"Iraq was on the verge of having a nuclear bomb," he said. "The world will never know what Saddam would have done."

In June 2003, Obeidi contacted a former United Nations Weapons inspector and told him there was part of a gas centrifuge system for enriching uranium and blueprints hidden under a rose bush in his garden. He put them there 12 years earlier just before the Desert Storm invasion, under orders from Hussein Kamel, Saddam Hussein's son-in-law.

A centrifuge is a machine that spins at extremely high speed to enrich uranium, needed to build an atomic bomb. Obeidi spent several years building the centrifuge and at one point, had more than 200 engineers working under him on the project to build a nuclear bomb.

Initial attempts to build the centrifuge did not produce results with enough spin, Obeidi said. The first centrifuge spun at about 10,000 revolutions per minute.

We needed 10 times that amount, he said.

In the early stages of the program, Obeidi met with Hussein and when asked about progress, told him the troubles they were having.

After the meeting, a fellow scientist told Obeidi, "You should be more worried about disappointing him now than later."

The working environment was not a pleasant one, Obeidi said, adding that they would often say "The walls have ears."


Still, Obeidi said there were several motivating factors for scientists working for Saddam.

"Scientists are good people and scientists are task oriented. They love their science," he said.

In places like Iraq, Libya, Pakistan and Iran, Obeidi said there is more.

"There is an element of fear."


"We understood the consequences of failure. We had talented men and women who worked under the greatest motivation known to man. Fear for their lives and families."

In '91, precariously close to completing the project, an order came to hide the centrifuge and himself. Obeidi hid the blueprints and the important parts of the centrifuge in a barrel in his yard. They remained there until 2003.