Appearance
Saddam's Bombmaker : The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda (Lisa Drew Bks.)
Saddam's Bombmaker is an important contribution to our understanding of the challenges faced by groups and states trying to produce their own nuclear weapon.How Iraq and Hamza went about trying to obtain fissile materiel and advanced tools and parts is the most interesting and important part of the book. You will be alternatively pleased at how hard it is to obtain some items (like plutonium) and dismayed at how easy it is to obtain others from willing states and companies. The book should be read by those interested in obtaining a better understanding of nuclear proliferation.Now to the shortcomings of the book---(1) the chronology is hard to follow, the author doesn't reference a lot of dates and flips back and forth between present, past and future.(2) It's hard to not to become skeptical of Dr. Hamza's motives at certain points. He claims to have been forced and terrorized to work on Saddam's bomb, but was simultaneously enjoying all the comforts and benefits that Saddam's regime had to offer like new cars, high living and perks. One wonders whether Dr. Hamza's conscience really caught up with him as he claims, or did he just read the writing on the wall that there was no future in Saddam's Iraq?
Saddam's Bombmaker : The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda (Lisa Drew Bks.)
There you go...a leading Iraqi scientist tells it all. This facinately story of his life and struggles in Iraq and Saddam's mad desire to create a nuclear weapon is compelling. You won't believe how close he was. The nuke along with his other WMDs like the chemical and biological agents, as the Kurd's found out, would have been a dangereous situatation indeed.
Saddam's Bombmaker : The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda (Lisa Drew Bks.)
I read this as a book on tape. This is an "important" book. I recommend it highly. Email:boland7214@aol.
Saddam's Bombmaker : The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda (Lisa Drew Bks.)
Most physicists lead hum-drum lives, but not if they were born in Iraq. Hamza studied in American graduate schools, and was summoned back to teach in Iraq as a way of paying off his university debts. When invited in 1972 to join the nascent Iraqi nuclear effort, Hamza did so with some enthusiasm, thinking this would be a wonderful professional challenge and not taking seriously the prospect of an actual bomb. In addition to Hamza's talent as a scientist and scholar, his finely-tuned ability to stay out of trouble quickly became apparent and he began a long march through the bureaucracy. By 1981, he was working directly for Saddam Husayn and by 1987 he served as director general of the Nuclear Weapon Program. This high stature inevitably brought the scientist head-turning benefits - a high salary, travel to the West, fancy cars, even a residence located within Saddam Husayn's presidential compound. "All that loot was softening me up, I don't deny it," Hamza admits. With time, however, an absorbing intellectual venture turned into a descent into Stalinist hell. Finally, Hamza fully woke to his situation ("I had sold out for a Mercedes") and in 1994 managed to escape from Iraq, settling a year later in the United States.Although Saddam's Bombmaker is a well-written memoir (kudos to co-author Stein), it contains important information on two quite distinct topics of current interest: life at the highest levels of Iraqi regime and the inner workings of the Iraqi nuclear weapons project. It is hard to say which is scarier. Life in Saddam's court is morbidly fascinating. We learn about his paranoia about germs, his taste for virgins, and his personal penchant for brutality. As for the nukes, Hamza shows how, after an initial period (1972-81) of heavy dependence on imported technology, the Iraqis rethought their program, put twenty-five times more resources in it, and built "a crude, one-and-a-half ton nuclear device" by 1990.
Saddam's Bombmaker : The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda (Lisa Drew Bks.)
This book is not overly technical. The punchline is in the appendix where the yield of the device is stated. It is a good sized book and only took a day to read. The author does not overstate his case. (Back in the cold-war Soviet defectors wrote lousy books, this fellow from Iraq is OK). I first heard about this book on a Iraqi-exile bulletin board and there have not been any negative comments posted about it to that bulletin board. The book appears to be the genuine article. I did not notice any technical errors in the small percentage of text that is technical. This book appears to be the genuine article.
Saddam's Bombmaker : The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda (Lisa Drew Bks.)
This is an incredible story from someone who was in the upper echelon of Hussein's regime. Reading this book not only gives one insight into the regime but shows how close Hussein was to getting a nuclear weapon.Mr. Hamza does not paint himself as a saint. He shows how Saddam Hussein keeps those he needs under his thumb. While most of us can't possibly understand Hussein himself, this book provides a close-up look at how he rules (ruled?) Iraq.As for the challenge to Mr. Hamza by Mr. Ritter...Scott Ritter? Has he *any* credibility left? In addition to the money he apparently accepted from the Iraqi regime for a documentary, it was discovered that there charges against him related to trying to solicit an underage girl in late 2001 that were hushed up; the ADA was fired when the story came to light. As for UNSCOM discovered papers and the like, Mr. Hamza describes an incident in the book where inspectors found a cache of documents; the way they and the Iraqi regime dealt with these is of great interest. I'm not saying Mr. Ritter might not have any fair arguments; however, Mr. Ritter's credibility quite suspect.