Nuclear Parts Unearthed in Iraq
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: It is not the smoking gun, but it is an important find. A CNN exclusive now, a key piece of Iraqi nuclear technology buried under a rose bush. Our national security correspondent, David Ensor, uncovers the story.</s>DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): CNN has learned that the Central Intelligence Agency has in its hands the critical parts of a key piece of Iraqi nuclear technology, parts needed to develop a bomb program that were dug up in a back yard in Baghdad. These are the parts and documents, shown exclusively to CNN at CIA headquarters in Virginia. The parts were dug up by this man, Iraqi scientist Mahdi Obeidi, who had hidden them in his back yard under a rose bush 12 years ago under orders from Qusay Hussein and Saddam Hussein's then son-in-law, Hussein Kamel. Obeidi told CNN's Mike Boettcher the parts of a gas centrifuge system for enriching uranium were part of a highly-sophisticated system that he was ordered to hide so as to be ready to rebuild the bomb program at some time in the future.</s>MAHDI OBEIDI, IRAQI NUCLEAR SCIENTIST: I have very important things at my disposal that I've been ordered to have, to keep, and I've kept them. And I don't want this to proliferate because of its potential consequences if it falls in the hands of tyrants, in the hands of dictators or of terrorists.</s>ENSOR: Former U.N. arms inspector David Kay, now in charge of the CIA effort to find the weapons, started work two days ago Baghdad. We spoke to him about the case over a secure teleconferencing line from CIA headquarters.</s>DAVID KAY, SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO CIA DIRECTOR: It begins to tell us how huge our job is. Remember, his material was buried in a barrel behind his house in a rose garden. There is no way that that would have been discovered by normal international inspections. I couldn't have done it. My successors couldn't have done it.</s>ENSOR: The gas centrifuge equipment dates back to Iraq's pre- 1991 efforts to build nuclear weapons. Experts say the documents and pieces Obeidi gave the U.S. were the critical information and parts to restart a nuclear weapons program and would have saved Saddam's regime several years and as much as hundreds of millions of dollars for research. U.S. officials emphasize this is not a smoking gun. This is not evidence Iraq had a nuclear weapon, but it is evidence the Iraqis concealed plans to reconstitute their nuclear program as soon as the world was no longer looking. (on camera): CNN had this story last week, but made a decision to withhold it from broadcast after a request from the U.S. government, citing safety and national security concerns. The U.S. government has now told us the security and safety issues have been dealt with, and there's no risk now in telling the story fully. David Ensor, CNN, Washington.