© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, Oct. 25, 2001

By Khidhir Hamza with Jeff Stein ISBN 0-7432-1135-9 Touchstone 352 pp. Purchase This Book

Nuclear physicist Khidhir Hamza was enjoying life as a college professor in Fort Valley, Ga., in 1970 when he received the news from Iraq. His home country was cashing in on its funding for his education in the United States by requiring Hamza to return to Iraq to work at that nation's Atomic Energy Department. Hamza wasn't thrilled, but he soon began to look forward to developing nuclear energy.

But in 1972, the real reason for Hamza's return to Iraq was made clear. The Iraqi government wanted him to head the effort to build a nuclear bomb. The announcement "shocked" him, Hamza writes in "Saddam's Bombmaker," but it would be more than 30 years -- 30 years of appeasing Saddam Hussein and coming very close to building a working bomb -- before Hamza would make his difficult escape to the United States.

"Saddam's Bombmaker" is a fascinating autobiography of those 30 years. In it, Hamza tells stories that will seem unimaginable to most Americans. There are stories of the Iraqi "good life" -- presents of cars, homes and cash for Saddam's most trusted advisers, among whom Hamza counted himself during those three decades. There are stories of science, of working to build a nuclear bomb without raising the suspicions of other countries. And there are stories of terror, such as Hamza's recollections of one colleague who questioned the legality of building the bomb and was subsequently tortured in an Iraqi prison until his children no longer recognized him.

Above all, Hamza's story is one of fear and warning. He paints a terrifying picture of Saddam, a man who once said: "Don't tell me about the law. The law is anything I write on a scrap of paper." Lower-level government officials were executed without a moment's thought. The higher-ups also lived in fear. They were constantly watched, and the gifts from Saddam were usually bribes or rewards for returning to Saddam's good graces after a period of torture.

Saddam, Hamza writes, is a megalomaniac who is determined to build a nuclear bomb. And once it is built, Hamza writes, the Iraqi leader will not be afraid to use it.

Hamza defected in 1994. It took him a year of traveling from country to country before the Central Intelligence Agency offered him and his family residency in the United States. And when he finally began telling Saddam's secrets, Hamza says the CIA was surprised: Iraq had convinced U.N. inspectors that its "nuclear effort had never progressed beyond basic research."

Perhaps more importantly, Hamza warns that Saddam is likely still working on the bomb. Hamza was the lead scientist and the key to Iraq's nuclear program for 30 years, but there are other scientists still in Iraq. And while the economic embargo following the Gulf War slowed the pace of nuclear proliferation, U.N. inspectors have not been allowed inside Iraq for more than a year, which means we don't know exactly what Saddam is doing. Add that to the fact that several other nations want the embargo against Iraq lifted -- which could allow Iraq to purchase materials to finish the bomb, Hamza writes. A completed bomb could mean numerous problems for the rest of the world, Hamza predicts, including an arms race among volatile Middle Eastern nations.

Hamza wants Saddam removed from power, and he laments the fact the United States seems "ambivalent" about doing so. But until that happens, Hamza writes, the United States should "make it easier for scientists like myself to get out of Iraq. Stripped of his brain trust, Saddam would no longer be able to build and maintain his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction." --Anne Wagner, NationalJournal.com

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