The Bomb in My Garden: The Secrets of Saddam's Nuclear Mastermind

There are many who disagree with the invasion of Iraq but few, I imagine, who disagree with the regime change. Therefore the debate is focused on the morality of the invasion based on the WMD argument: Did he have them or did he not?Well this guy, Dr Obeidi, had a centrifuge buried in his back garden, a device that can enrich uranium for atom bomb creation.If that was the case what else was lying about in Iraq?Moreover, Sadam's prevarication and mendacity on the WMD issue dug the regime's own grave as it led the coalition to believe that Sadam had WMD weapons secreted away somewhere and would eventually be used by him or some terrorist group and the author gives the skinny on all the subterfuge perpetrated to mislead the WM inspectors..Lets face it. Lots of goverments have them but none of the current stockpilers of WMD.s are daft enough to use them, thus far! However, Sadam was daft enough to use them, or, to give to other people to use, Therefore, he had to go. Good riddance. However, the people who are suffering are the innocent Iraqis who have to cope with the social, religious and political upheaval caused by the invasion. The Iraqis have had a raw deal since the Sykes Pequot Agreement that divided their country nearly a century ago and made it a vassal state of both the UK and France. The arrival of Saddam added insult to injury. Unfortunately, getting rid of people like Saddam causes massive upheaval and innocent lives are lost in thousands. Look at what it cost to get rid of Hitler and Mussolini. Also, the coalition never prepared a post invasion plan that would create a framework for decent honest self government. People also forget what a mess Europe was after WW II.Read the book. It will also open your eyes to how easy it was for Dr Obeidi to purchase the required components, blueprints and knowledge from the UK and other European suppliers to construct a centrifuge who could have been on the receiving end of one of Saddam's WMD.s, but put short term profit before civic spirit and morality.The book also provides an insight into what it was like to live and work in Iraq and have to take orders from Saddam and his crew of homicidal loony tunes, never knowing when there would be a knock on the door leading to grisly end in one of Saddam's torture chambers for you and your family

Mahdi Obeidi was in charge of developing Iraq's nuclear weapons programme. When I say he was in charge, I mean Saddam's brother in law put a gun to his head and said "do it, or else!"This book explains how Dr Obeidi got started in his career and how, by being extremely clever and hard working, it lead him into this terrifying predicament. He explains how Iraq managed to manipulate some of the world's leading high tech players into handing over highly secretive documents, often for money and profit. Dr Obeidi also explains the importance of centrifuges to the processing of uranium and once again, how Iraq managed to get its hands on this highly classified technology. It also covers his interviews with scientists and engineers post invasion, to ascertain if Iraq really did have WMDs.This is a very interesting book, it reads more like a spy novel! I feel terribly sorry for the Iraqi people, having to live under the terrifying dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and his family. This book captures that fear very well.

Did President Bush lie about the existence of WMD in Saddam Hussein's Iraq? You'll find an answer in this book. Mahdi Obeidi worked on Hussein's uranium-enrichment centrifuge for decades, coerced by veiled threats to his family. He shopped throughout Europe for materials, prototype components, and detailed centrifuge drawings to use in top-secret plants. After Saddam's son, Qusay, learned that Obeidi possessed a complete set of designs for each part of the centrifuge, Obeidi decided to conceal those plans in a fifty-gallon green plastic barrel buried under a tree in his backyard. Technically, the UN inspectors dismantled Saddam's nuclear capabilities, but as Obeidi reveals, Saddam's plan was to lie low until the danger passed. America invaded. Obeidi and his family fled Iraq and sought asylum in the US. In his opinion, those hundreds of scientists left behind in Baghdad are "walking encyclopedias of centrifuge technology, and they could be very valuable to a foreign weapons program." After reading the book, you decide whether Saddam posed a nuclear threat or not.

So So book

Enjoying the book - I’m very happy I spent the extra time to, and pick a small business seller with awesome customer service.Would definitely recommend the seller :)

I can say that I've had the unique pleasure of meeting this man during my graduate studies. Very much a man that suffered under the reign of Saddam and his family also suffered. That being said it is a good recollection of his lecture. This is his story and he's sticking to it. It's a book that shows that the world can be manipulated into something that can suit your needs and save your life. It's an excellent inside look into the world of a man that lived a higher stature life while still fearing his "superiors" on a daily basis. Good reading.

After meeting the author, I thought I'd read some of what we had talked about. I learned a lot just speaking with Dr. Mahdi. He was kind and soft spoken. It was difficult to try and put myself into his shoes. The freedoms that I and my countrymen take advantage of are many. He relished those freedoms and now he is able to enjoy them as are many of his Iraqi brothers. I realize many disagree with what took place, but not everyone is pleased with everything.The book tells of how someone that really wants to accomplish a task CAN make it happen.Worth reading to understand a little more about Iraq and events that happened before Operation Iraqi freedom.

I'm not sure why all the UK reviews of this book have been removed. I've bought this book twice now, having leant the first out to someone and then forgotten who (never lend books, kids!) and so wanted another copy for myself. I frequently think of this book whenever I see/read someone in the mainstream press declaring with absolute certainty that there were no WMD's in Iraq and that we were lied to etc etc....and think to myself "but what about the one in the garden?"From what I remember (I read it 3 years ago) it tells the gripping autobiographical tale of the chief nuclear scientist in Iraq, who lived under constant threat, for both himself and his family; how he was educated abroad and then tasked with scouring the world surreptitiously to find the equipment, materials and knowledge necessary for Iraq to be able to refine its own weapons grade uranium and build nuclear weapons, usually under ludicrous pressure from barely achievable deadlines.And, not to ruin the ending for you but, he only went and did it. And then, just as he had, the Americans invaded for the first time following the Kuwait invasion by Saddam, amongst other things. At which point his work went, literally, underground: the plans, centrifuges etc etc that were the complicated end product of several years of his labour, and that would allow him to resume work on it all again once those pesky weapons inspectors went away, were buried in his garden. And then the Americans invaded a second time. And Saddam, and his charming younger brother, were gone and for the first time he could remember he wasn't scared of having hot pokers shoved up his jacksie if he was to look at them funny. So he went up and tapped the Americans on the shoulder and told them where to find the entire stash. And he had to do this twice because there seemed to have been two "America's" there, and the two weren't communicating with each other very closely....the actual army and the CIA. The latter took it.But all we ever get told since then about WMD's in Iraq, is that they found nothing. And that we shouldn't have been there. "Blair is a war criminal!"Well, when it comes to the WMD's, I suspect what they tell us is true in the same respect that someone who found in a house some bullets, a barrel, a chamber and whatever other disassembled parts of a gun are necessary to make a whole, could honestly then go on to say that they didn't find a loaded weapon in the house. Strictly speaking true, but hardly a good description of the actual events.Once the dust settles and the inquiries are all finished and studied, we'll probably have been wrong to have interfered with Milosovic, and definitely with Arafat, on dubious and faulty intelligence in both cases; but maybe, just maybe, it was worth getting rid of the genocidal, chemical weapon using, neighbour invading, Saddam, before he got his WMD's program fully underway and installed a lovely new North Korean type kingdom splash bang in the middle of the, already somewhat volatile, arab world, safe behind the one weapon that'll ensure America, and the rest of us lovely capitalism worshippers, leave you alone to be just as nutty as you wish.It's just a shame we didn't help them set themselves up properly in the aftermath, rather than trying to install puppet government with no infrastructure and instead leaving a desperate, hostile vacuum to be filled by the first bunch of violent thugs, convicted by whatever version of god they delude themselves is on their side, that came along.Anyway, it's a good book and, having thoroughly spoiled the ending, I recommend it.Now, maybe I should head over to the Se7en dvd, and write a review in which I mention there's a head in the box.

Christopher Hitchens in some interview or lecture or other on youtube mentioned this book. This is worth it if you can find a cheap used copy like I did.If you're interested in the middle east, and like to read these types of semi-autobiographical book, I recommend Nonie Darwish's Now They Call Me Infidel - it is a very good book in that it is both informative and very fun to read!

The writer in Iraq used to work for a man I know who notified me that the writer is a liar and it I'll lies so I returned it

今話題のイラクについて､テレビや新聞では知りえない､日本人には信じられないイラクの状況が､スリリングに描かれていて､はじめから終わりまで､目を離せない作品です｡やさしい英語の表現が､読者をさらに本のなかに引き入れます｡　国際情勢に興味が無くても､ゴシップ感覚で読み通せて､（散々な目にあっているイラクの人には恐縮ですが，）とても楽しめる本だと思います｡　最後に､「イラクの人々に平和で豊かな日々が早く訪れますように！」