Dr. Modher Sadeq-Saba al-Tamimi's departure comes as top weapons makers
from Saddam's deposed regime find themselves eight months out of work but
with skills that could be lucrative to militaries or terrorist
organizations in neighboring countries. U.S. officials have said some are
already in Syria and Jordan.
Experts long feared the collapse of Saddam's rule could lead to the
kind of scientific brain-drain the United States tried to prevent as the
former Soviet Union collapsed. But the Bush administration had no plan for
Iraqi scientists and instead officials suggested they could be tried for
war crimes.
"There are a couple hundred Iraqis who are really good scientists,
particularly in the missile area," said Jonathan Tucker, a former U.N.
inspector now with the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey
Institute in California. "In the chemical and biological areas, their work
wasn't state of the art but it was good enough to be of interest to other
countries."
Only now is the State Department exploring the possibility of a
government-funded program to block a scientific exodus and prevent Iraqis
from doing future research in weapons of mass destruction. Initial cost
estimates for the program run about $16 million, according to a Nov. 3
draft proposal obtained by AP.
Two members of the Pentagon (news
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sites)'s Defense Intelligence Agency involved in questioning
scientists in custody told AP the Iraqis continue to deny the existence of
illicit weapons programs in Iraq (news
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sites). Dozens of Iraqi scientists have been questioned and less than
30 remain in custody. All of them, including senior members of Saddam's
regime, have been subjected to lie-detector tests, which have come up
clean on weapons questioning, the DIA officers said.
But U.S. scientists and weapons experts, who all spoke on condition of
anonymity, said they're having trouble finding some Iraqi experts in Iraq
and have no way of tracking ones they've met.
"They could leave Baghdad tomorrow and we'd never know," said one
senior official involved in the hunt. "Very few are obligated to tell us
where they're going or what they're up to."
U.N. inspectors spoke with Dr. Modher in Baghdad a week before the
U.S.-led war began on March 20. Two U.S. weapons investigators say they
believe he crossed the Iraq-Iran border on foot at least two months after
U.S. forces took Baghdad.
His activities in Iran are unclear and may explain why his
disappearance hasn't been publicly disclosed. The CIA (news
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sites) declined to discuss its efforts with Iraqi scientists or
identify individuals.
Thought to be in his mid-50's, the Czech-educated scientist specialized
in missile engines. He met numerous times with U.N. inspectors during the
1990s and earlier this year when he argued that the Al-Samoud missile
system under his command wasn't in violation of a U.N. range limit. The
inspectors determined otherwise when tests showed it could fly more than
93 miles. They quickly began destroying the Iraqi stock, much to his
frustration.
"Dr. Modher was declared by Iraq to have been one of the principal
figures in their missile programs," said Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the
U.N. inspectors.
In the late 1980s, Modher headed up the Iraqi military's Project 1728,
part of an effort to produce engines for longer-range missiles.
He was the protege and favored colleague of Iraqi Lt. Gen. Hussein
Kamel, Saddam's right-hand man and son-in-law who briefly defected to
Jordan in 1995. There, Kamel told U.N. inspectors during interrogations
about his work and Dr. Modher's efforts to build a missile powerful enough
to strike most major European cities.
According to the interrogation transcripts, Kamel said Modher and a
nuclear physicist named Mahdi Obeidi both took work and documents from
their offices. U.N. inspectors investigated the claim but found nothing.
In July of this year, Obeidi gave the CIA a stack of papers and a piece
of equipment that had been buried in his backyard for 12 years. In return,
he has become the only Iraqi scientist allowed to move to the United
States since the beginning of the U.S. occupation.
Other than Obeidi, who is living along the East Coast with his family,
another scientist known to have left the country is Jaffar al-Jaffer who
founded Iraq's nuclear program in the 1980s. He's in the United Arab
Emirates, where U.S. troops are stationed, and has been questioned by U.S.
and British intelligence officials.
But Jaffar, like a handful of senior scientists being held by U.S.
forces in Iraq, hasn't provided any information on the whereabouts of
suspected chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. While President Bush
(news
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sites) said he launched the war to disarm Iraq of its deadly arsenal,
such weapons remain elusive.
David Kay, the chief weapons hunter, has said his teams so far have
found new information on Iraqi missile systems. But a conversation with
Modher could have cleared up unanswered questions about Iraq's true
capabilities for delivering weapons of mass destruction.
Modher traveled to Germany in 1987 to buy high-tech equipment through H
& H Metalform, a company whose senior officers were later tried in
Germany and found guilty of violating the country's export control laws,
U.N. inspectors said.
The equipment enabled Iraq to make components for Scud missiles similar
to the ones they later fired at Israel and Saudi Arabia during the 1991
Gulf War (news
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sites).
When that conflict ended, Iraq faced U.N. sanctions forbidding it from
purchasing any new weapons-making equipment.
But four years later, Modher was caught by U.N. inspectors when he
inquired about Russian-made gyroscopes from a Palestinian middleman. At
the time, Tariq Aziz, then Iraq's deputy prime minister, told U.N.
inspectors Modher had acted on his own and would be punished for breaking
sanctions. He allegedly spent 2 1/2 years in jail.
Kay told reporters in Washington last month that "senior Iraqi
officials, both military and scientific" had moved to Jordan and Syria,
"both pre-conflict and some during the conflict, and some immediately
after the conflict."
He didn't mention Iran, although its long, shared border with Iraq has
been an easy crossing point for militants and Shiite pilgrims headed to
Iraqi shrines.
Jordanian and Syrian officials dismissed claims that wanted Iraqis are
inside their countries and Kay has offered no names of those believed to
have fled.
But signs of an exodus have led to a renewed push by nonproliferation
experts and government officials to keep the scientists from wandering.
The 11-page State Department plan aimed at preventing Iraqi scientists
from fleeing is entitled "The Science Technology and Engineering
Mentorship Initiative for Iraq."
Such initiatives are critical but late, said Tucker of the Monterey
Institute.
"This is something that should have been done immediately after the war
ended," he said. "The initial approach, which was to treat them as
criminals and threaten them with prosecution only makes scientists want to
leave or stay away."
