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Following are excerpts from an interview with Iraqi nuclear scientist Imad Khadouri, which aired on Al-Jazeera International TV on June 14, 2009.
Interviewer: Let us go to the origin of the Iraqi nuclear technology and nuclear quest. What lies behind it?
Imad Khadouri: It all started, in fact, by the United States. After the Second World War and the atomic bombs of America over Japan, and Russia exploding its bomb in 1949, followed by France, there was a program called "Atoms for Peace," by Eisenhower at the time. The purpose of that program was that if you spread the nuclear information, and the peaceful uses of nuclear technology, you somehow abort the drive toward weaponization. Part of that program was a gift to Iraq in 1956 of [what was] at the time a complete library on nuclear energy – what was published about nuclear energy, peaceful uses of it – and a gift of a small nuclear reactor – not a power one, a zero power one – for research. But that library, in fact, contained some of the books and reports of the Manhattan Project itself.
Interviewer: So they actually gave you the blueprint of how to make a bomb, inadvertently?
Imad Khadouri: Yes, and in 1987, I found those books in a chest, with five cm of dust on them, in the library of the Atomic Energy of Iraq. Those books really brought us forward.
[...]
Interviewer: The Iraqi government sent you, along with several highly intelligent students, to go and train in France. The Mossad, the Israeli intelligence, actually made some attempts to penetrate this group. Were you enticed? Were you approached by the Mossad?
Imad Khadouri: Upon hindsight, I say yes. Now I say yes. We were approached when we were in Paris. We were training on these two nuclear research reactors that we bought from France. We were approached by a lady doing a survey, and she came several times, and we became more friendly. We even had lunch... dinner together. She had a friend with her. But on hindsight, now I can [say] with 90 percent probability, she was the same lady as the previous prime minister [sic] of Israel.
Interviewer: Tzipi Livni actually approached you? The Israel – currently leader of Kadima, the former foreign minister, and she was supposed to be the prime minister – was in France, in that period, as a Mossad agent, and she approached you?
Imad Khadouri: Yes, because her face is distinctive – a bit changed, a bit older – but at that time, I can now connect... And when I read that she actually was in France as a Mossad agent, at the same period of time that we were there, it connected.
Interviewer: Absolutely amazing. Imad Khadouri, this is a first. Imad Khadouri was approached by Tzipi Livni to become a double agent.
[...]
Interviewer: When the bomb fell on Iraq in 1981, where were you?
Imad Khadouri: Well, it was after six in the evening, when the sun was going down, so everybody was at home, except for some late workers at the reactor. From home, which was 20 km away, we could hear the explosions. We ran up on the roof of the house, and we could see the smoke and the plume coming out, and realized that it was Al-Tuwaitha that was bombed. We could see the Israeli planes heading west, back to Israel.
Definitely, Saddam took the political decision to go forward intensely on the nuclear weapon program. Until that time, from 1974 on, they were just testing the waters – throwing ideas, what to do, what not to do, and so forth. But that attack definitely convinced Saddam to initiate that program. For that purpose we had one the great scientists, Dr. Jafar Dhia Jafar, who was under house imprisonment for 18 months, for supporting Dr. Hussain Al-Shahristani at the time, who is now the oil minister. He was released from his house arrest, and he came, and the program was initiated.
[...]
I remember once, I went in 1981 to attend a conference in California, using my technology that I was using for prospecting. Dr. Jafar wanted some very sensitive articles on weaponization, as well as to acquire some very sensitive lasers. so I went there, and I went to an American librarian, who had her business card on the table, at her home, and I gave her the list of the reports that I wanted. Within two or three days, I went back and I collected them, for 100 or 200 dollars, or something. then I flew to Florida, and I met an Indian at the airport. I gave him a suitcase full of cash, and he gave me the lasers. Of course, I had my security with me at the time. Then we came back to Baghdad. That was in the early eighties. I was in the program to acquire a nuclear power station from the Soviet Union, which was really a camouflage for the real nuclear weapons program.
In 1987, there was a huge turnover in the weaponization program, and a new technological venue was chosen, which is the same methodology as was used in Manhattan. So I was asked to come back and get the information for this process – the classified and the covert. There, I did many things. For example, I found, first of all, these books that were in the library for about 50 years. They were the Manhattan books, without which...
Interviewer: You also subscribed to many scientific journals, with fake addresses in Baghdad, and these magazines were sent to different places, including the Central Bank, where you, on a monthly basis, would go and collect these magazines, and give them to the scientists.
Imad Khadouri: Yes, under camouflaged names, and we collected a huge amount of recent – at the time – information, and technological... Also, I hired the services of an American company that indexed all products. If you have a product, you can tell which company will sell it for you, what are the standards applying to that product, and the standards that apply.
I rented that library for a quarter of a million dollars a year. Not only that – all the American weapons library, all on microfilm.
[...]
The Russian reactor, which at that time was upgraded to five megawatts, unfortunately... Because of the Iran war, we had constructed a steel cover, because the reactor is a big pool of water and is exposed on the top. So this steel cover was built to protect it from a direct hit. For some reason, knowing the Americans would be attacking that night, on Thursday, February 17th, the reactor was kept on running to produce some elements required, and when the bombs started to fall, at 2 AM, some bombs fell close to the building of the reactor – so close that the operators left the building, afraid it was going to be bombed. But then they were courageous enough, brave enough, to rush back in, to turn off the reactor, and put this cover on top of it. Had by any slim chance a bomb breached that reactor containment, it would have been...
Interviewer: Iraq and the region would have been contaminated for years to come.
Imad Khadouri: Yes, a mini Chernobyl would have occurred.
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The nuclear program in Iraq ceased to exist as of the night of Thursday, February 17, when we were bombed.
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Interviewer: If I were to ask you about the lessons Iran learned from the Iraqi experience, how would you summarize it?
Imad Khadouri: They learned two important lessons. The first one was that in 1991, after the carpet bombing of Iraq, the Americans, the Israeli intelligence, and the British MI6, missed a couple of critical establishments of the nuclear weapons program. One of them was where the bomb was to be manufactured. Only when the inspectors came on the ground did they find out about these establishments. That is a very good lesson for Iran – to make sure that their program is not infiltrated by any spies, any human intelligence. That’s why, at the moment, neither the Americans nor the Israelis know the complete scope of the Iranian nuclear bomb.
Secondly, they went underground. With the new technology of enrichment, using centrifuges, which can be easily hidden in buildings, in spaces, and connected through pipes, unlike other technologies... So they learned... Because Iraq, although it had its electromagnetic plants in operation, the Americans bombed them by mistake. They didn’t know they were there. On top of that, the Iranians can very easily put them underground, connect them, and produce what is required for the bomb.
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