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Axis of Evil
Iraqi Scientist Denounces Inspectors
2003-01-19
An angry Iraqi scientist accused "Mafia-like" U.N. inspectors Saturday of using his wife's illness in an attempt to lure him abroad for interrogation about Baghdad's nuclear programs. "Never, never will I leave my country," he said.
"So please don't kill me!"
Physicist Faleh Hassan was one of two scientists whose homes inspectors visited Thursday. It was the first unannounced visit to private residences as the United States increased pressure on the U.N. teams to try to take scientists abroad for questioning about possible prohibited weapons-building by the Iraqis. Hassan ended up spending the overnight hours with the U.N. team at a Baghdad hotel, arguing over whether he would be able to retain copies of documents the inspectors found in his home, he told reporters Saturday in his suburban front yard.
"We need those things, and those are the only copies..."
Before that, Hassan, 55, had taken the U.N. experts to a field outside Baghdad where they together inspected what appeared to be a man-made mound, the significance of which was unclear to onlooking journalists. A senior Iraqi official said later Thursday that the field was part of a farm Hassan sold in 1996.
"A man can't make a livin' growin' warheads no more..."
The physicist, once associated with the Iraq government's nuclear program, said that during that side trip, when an accompanying Iraqi official left his side momentarily, a female U.N. inspector offered to arrange for him to leave Iraq as an "escort" for his ailing wife. Hassan said he was assured that treatment would be arranged for his wife for kidney stones, diabetes and high blood pressure. He said the woman was an American, but could not remember her name. Hassan said he refused the offer. "This is Mafia-like behavior," he told reporters.
Not really. Icing your brother-in-law to make sure you won't talk, that's Mafia-like behavior...
"We would rather live as beggars in our country than live as kings abroad," he said. He said he wouldn't leave even if instructed to do so by his government.
"Actually, I would, but I know they won't instruct me to do so, so I can say I won't..."
On Thursday, Hassan emerged from his home, after a six-hour U.N. search, carrying a cardboard box packed with documents. After the side trip to the field, he, the U.N. team and Iraqi officials went to the Baghdad hotel, where the inspectors intended to photocopy the material. There, he said, they tried to renege on a commitment to give him copies, and he stood his ground until after dawn. Finally, they relented and returned copies to him, he told reporters.
"Oh, here. Just take 'em and be off with you! We're tired of listening to you bitch."
He earlier had refused to be taken to the U.N. compound here for the copying process. "I am not accused of any crime," he said. "No one can force me to go somewhere that is not under the control of Iraqi institutions."
I sure hope this guy catches one when the balloon does go up. I don't think I like him at all...
Hassan, director of the Al-Razi military industrial site, said the documents were from his own research work and from graduate theses of students whom he has advised. "They're old documents, not worth photocopying," he said.
So why was it so important for you to have copies? (Damn those hobgoblins of little minds, anyway!)
Chief U.N. inspector Mohamed ElBaradei on Saturday defended the inspectors' seizure of the documents. "Why are you keeping documents at the private home, official documents at the private home?" he asked in an interview with CNN in Cyprus. He also denied Hassan's claims that the inspection of his home was disrespectful. "It was done in a very professional way. There were only women inspectors who went to the home to make it clear that we were not encroaching on the privacy of the home," ElBaradei said.
Too bad, Hansie. You handle the whole thing with kid gloves, they still bitch and moan, don't they?
Posted by:Fred Pruitt

#1  Is this bird one of the two mentioned in
http://www.news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/01/19/wirq19.xml ??

Seems the documents prove on-going nuke weapons research.

Best part: "Although Dr Hans Blix, the head of the UN inspections teams, was made aware of the discovery last week, he failed to mention it during talks with Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, and Jacques Chirac the French president."
Well, hey, it wasn't UN-Scam that found these papers, so why should he mention them?
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I also notice from this article "There were only women inspectors who went to the home", which is kinda cute. It will look in our press like thwy were trying not to be confrontational, but while Iraqi women are not cloistered like SA women neither are they often in positions of power over men.
Posted by: John Anderson   2003-01-19 17:12:40  

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