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

by Mahdi Obeidi

Overview

Acclaim for the Bomb in My Garden

"This one book will tell you more about Iraq's quest for weapons of mass destruction than all U.S. intelligence on the subject. It is a fascinating and rare glimpse inside Saddam Hussein's Iraq-and inside a tyrant's mind."
-Fareed Zakaria, author of The Future of Freedom

"The Bomb in My Garden is important and utterly gripping. The old clich? is true-you start reading, and you don't want to stop. Mahdi Obeidi's story makes clear how hard Saddam Hussein tried to develop a nuclear weapon, and the reasons he fell short. It is also unforgettable as a picture of how honorable people tried to cope with a despot's demands. I enthusiastically recommend this book."
-James Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic Monthly

"One of the three or four accounts that anyone remotely interested in the Iraq debate will simply have to read. Apart from its insight into the workings of the Saddam nuclear project, it provides a haunting account of the atmosphere of sheer evil that permeated every crevice of Iraqi life under the old regime."
-christopher hitchens, Slate

"Mahdi Obeidi describes in jaw-dropping detail how Iraq acquired the means to produce highly enriched uranium, the key ingredient to building a nuclear weapon, by the eve of the first Gulf War. . . . [His book] offers insights into how a determined dictator, backed by sufficient resources, can come within reach of acquiring the world's most horrific weapons."
-The Washington Post BookWorld

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780471741275
Publisher:	Turner Publishing Company
Publication date:	09/01/2005
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	649,013
Product dimensions:	6.02(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.72(d)

About the Author

MAHDI OBEIDI oversaw Saddam's top-secret centrifuge program and later became director-general of Iraq's Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization. The few remaining components and plans for the uranium-enriching centrifuge that he voluntarily turned over to the United States during the war still represent the largest collection of evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

KURT PITZER began the Iraq war embedded with the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division and jumped his embed when Baghdad fell. He met Obeidi there and helped him turn his secrets over to the United States.

Read an Excerpt

Click to read or download

Table of Contents

Preface.

1. The Bomb in My Garden.

2. Early Ambitions.

3. The Centrifuge.

4. Saddam's Grip.

5. Shopping Europe.

6. The Crash Program.

7. Nuclear Hide-and-Seek.

8. The Dark Years.

9. The March to War.

10. The Time Capsule.

Epilogue.

Acknowledgments.

Index.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"This one book will tell you more about Iraq's quest for weapons of mass destruction than all US intelligence on the subject. It is a fascinating and rare glimpse inside Saddam Hussein's Iraq -- and inside a tyrant's mind."
--Fareed Zakaria, author of The Future of Freedom

"The Bomb in My Garden is important and utterly gripping. The old cliché is true -- you start reading, and you don't want to stop.  Mahdi Obeidi's story makes clear how hard Saddam Hussein tried to develop a nuclear weapon, and the reasons he fell short. It is also unforgettable as a picture of how honorable people tried to cope with a despot's demands. I enthusiastically recommend this book."
--James Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic Monthly

“Obeidi was the key scientist in Saddam’s centrifuge program, and he was central when they tried to conceal it. He was already thought to be too friendly to the weapons inspectors, and he showed considerable personal courage in coming forward as he did during very unsettled conditions after the war.”
—David Kay, former U.N. weapons inspector and Head of the Iraqi Survey Group in charge of searching for weapons of mass destruction

Editorial Reviews

* “…explosive…” (The Independent Magazine, Saturday 5th November 2005)

From the Publisher

The result offers insights into how a determined dictator, backed by sufficient resources, can come within reach of acquiring the world's most horrific weapons. It is a tale of cruelty and ruthlessness on the part of Hussein but also of naiveté and greed on the part of Western scientists who enabled Iraq to take shortcuts toward becoming a nuclear power.
— The Washington Post

Michael Dobbs

[Obeidi's] memoir is not an instructive guide to Iraq's quest for the bomb. It is an indispensable one. Expertly organized and packed with telling vignettes, it is never less than riveting. Not a member of Hussein's camarilla but in close contact with it, Obeidi draws on his experiences to depict a regime that became the premier consumer of its own propaganda.
— The New York Times

Jacob Heilbrunn

This compact and absorbing book reads like a thriller and adds considerably to our knowledge of the Iraq WMD situation. Obeidi was a trained engineer in the Iraqi oil industry, but his brilliant record led to his transfer to the nuclear weapons program. After the bombing of Iraq's Osirak reactor by Israel in 1981, he spearheaded the search for a working centrifuge as the best method of enriching fissionable material for a bomb. That work also involved him in a number of situations worthy of James Bond, as he sought classified knowledge and key components all over the world, under surveillance from both Saddam Hussein (and Saddam's son-in-law, the vividly portrayed Hussein Kamel) and foreign intelligence agencies. The author finally buried most of the relevant data, drawings and sample components in his backyard and turned them over to Coalition forces before emigrating to the United States. Pitzer was embedded for U.S. News & World Report with the army's 3rd Infantry, but left them as Baghdad fell, met Obeidi and played a role in the transfer of the documents. Together, they have produced an eloquent tale of a scientist who spent 20 years in a "damned if I do and damned if I don't situation" and survived with family and sanity intact. (Sept. 24) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly