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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Abu Ghraib: The Iraqi scientist who said NO to Saddam |
| 2004-06-25 |
| For refusing to work on Saddam Hussein’s weapons programme, Hussain Al-Shahristani spent 11 years as a prisoner in the infamous Abu Ghraib jail. As Iraq struggles to rebuild, he was recently put forward as a candidate to head the interim government. He explains to Michael Bond why he declined. He is now calling for other scientists around the world to boycott research on all weapons of mass destruction How well did you know Saddam Hussein? I knew Saddam closely because he was head of the Atomic Energy Commission in the 1970s even before he became president. What was he like? I was never impressed by him. I knew that he was a vicious man who would not hesitate to send people to be executed when they had very minor differences with him. He never impressed me with any intelligence or insight. (SNIP) When he became president of Iraq in 1979 he asked you to work on an atomic weapons programme. What happened? I was the chief scientific adviser to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission when Saddam appointed himself president. He wanted to redirect our research activities from peaceful applications to what were referred to as strategic applications. I refused to work on the programme. Was that an easy decision to make? Fairly easy. It was clear to me that any weapons in his hands would be used against the Iraqi people. I could not find myself working on any military programme, particularly for Saddam. In taking that decision I knew what the consequences would be, but I didn’t have much choice. The options were either to work with him and enable him to kill tens or hundreds of thousands of people, or to take a stand and pay the price. My religious convictions obliged me to choose the latter. Yet many of your fellow scientists did agree to work on Saddam’s weapons programmes Yes, other scientists were forced to work on them. But of course they needed some convincing: some were arrested, tortured, kept in mental hospitals and so on, and eventually they were persuaded to go back and work on the weapons programme. What happened to you when you refused? I was arrested in December 1979. I was interrogated and tortured for 22 days and nights. In my case they were gentler because they did not want to leave any permanent bodily marks on me. They hung me from the ceiling by my hands, which were tied behind my back. They used electric probes on sensitive parts of my body and beat me. There were others in the torture chambers who were treated far worse. In one case I witnessed a guy having holes drilled into his bones with electric drills. The most painful thing in those torture chambers was to hear the screams of children being tortured to extract confessions from their fathers. What did they do with you then? I was sentenced to life imprisonment and taken to Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. I was visited by Saddam’s step-brother, who came to my cell and expressed his disappointment in what they had done to me, and tried to persuade me to go back to my work. He told me there was a place for me at the presidential palace. I said I was not in a position to do so, both physically because I was half-paralysed after being tortured, and also because weapons research was not my specialty. Then he said that any man who was not willing to serve his country did not deserve to be alive. I said that it was our duty to serve our country, but that this was one service I could not do. At this point I was ordered to solitary confinement for 10 years. I was there from May 1980 to May 1990, on Saddam’s personal orders. click on the link and read the whole interview. quite amazing. |
| Posted by:Anon1 |