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Egyptian Scientists Chased by US
The United States is asking Egypt to submit information about the scientists who, the US claim, were instrumental in building the Iraqi nuclear reactor that was destroyed by Israel in 1981, according to Al-Majalla, a sister publication of Arab News. Sources at the Egyptian Nuclear Committee said that most of these scientists independently contacted Iraqi universities for teaching positions, and not through the Egyptian government. Most of the scientists graduated from Alexandria Universityâs nuclear engineering department. Dr. Yahya Al-Mashad, the brain behind the Iraqi nuclear reactor who was assassinated by the Israelis in 1980, was a teacher at Alexandria University. Most of the scientists graduated between 1967 and 1970 and went to Iraq at the request of President Saddam Hussein, who knew some of them from his time when he was a political refugee in Egypt. Iraqi-Egyptian old boys network? Forty graduates of Alexandria University went to Baghdad. On return, half of them found employment with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). And they are totally objective inspectors! The US believes that the remainder are still in Egypt and has asked to compare the list of scientists submitted by Iraq with Egyptian university lists. Fourteen of the 20 scientists in Egypt have died in suspicious circumstances, according to sources, who speculate that they, like Dr Al-Mashad, were assassinated by the Israelis. Or maybe by Saddam, because they knew too much? It is known that there was an agreement between the Iraqi government and the Egyptian Nuclear Committee on the peaceful use of nuclear energy, but the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait put an end to cooperation. Sure it did. Several Egyptian universities with nuclear engineering departments produce scores of graduates every year who cannot find employment in Egypt because the country only has one nuclear power station. The majority of these graduates look for work abroad, especially in the US and Canada, where an estimated 250 are currently employed. The 170 Egyptian nationals working for the IAEA form the largest group from any single nationality. No wonder that the IAEA can't find any nuclear weapons in Iraq or Iran. Posted by: Steve 2003-02-24 |
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