. Since they do not post their materials in English and there is a lack of information in the English speaking world regarding Mr. Dschar Dhia, we have prepared an informal translation. The American press needs to cover this story.
T-Online: Dr. Dschafar, you fled Baghdad in the beginning of April
2003...
Dschafar: Yes, on the evening of April 7th - just days before the arrival of the US Army.
T-Online: Why exactly at this point in time?
Dschafar: I saw how fast the Americans were coming and figured that myself - like many of my colleagues - would be arrested.
T-Online: You fled then to the United Arab Emirates.
Dschafar: At first I went with my wife and daughter to Syria and stayed there a night in the border town of Kamischli. Then we went to Aleppo and fled finally from Damascus to Dubai.
T-Online: But then there you met the Americans.
Dschafar: Yes, as I came to Dubai - it was Thursday the 10th of April - the Americans made contact with me. The authorities there [Dubai] had told them [the Americans] that I was there. They said to me prior to that: "Look you say you had no weapons of mass destruction [WMDs]. Why don't you tell the Americans. They would like to hear that from you." I agreed. The Americans came to my hotel and we talked with each other.
T-Online: How did they react to your revelation that there weren't any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?
Dschafar: On the evening of April 11 the Chief of the CIA Office in Abu Dhabi came to me. His name was XXXX XXXXX {name omitted - see original}. He came in my hotel and his first question was ,,Do you have nuclear weapons?" I had to laugh. I said to him: ,,If we had nuclear weapons you wouldn't had marched into Iraq."
T-Online: What was his reaction?
Dschafar: He said just: "We have a few questions", and he started to question me. But I told again that after 1991 that we didn't have any ABC weapons [WMDs]. He went into that further and came on the
following day again - this time with the official Director of British Intelligence. Actually, I shouldn't have had to tell them that, right?
T-Online: I would think so...
Dschafar: Anyway, it's a funny story: They had no idea what they were talking about. Then on the following Sunday came a whole group from Washington and another one from the United Kingdom. This time they were very well informed. That was the real experts. They stayed three days and we talked everyday for three to four hours.
T-Online: Did the Americans believe your story about the concerned ABC weapons [WMDs]?
Dschafar: Why shouldn't they believe me? More groups came to me. All together there were about 20 interrogations. Finally someone asked: "Why don't you simply take a lie detector test?" I said OK and a guy came from Washington with a polygraph (i.e. lie detector device). He connected it on my right hand and asked eight questions that I could answer with "yes" or "no". Two of those were so-called calibration questions. With those questions must say one time a lie and one time the truth so one sees that the polygraph is functioning. First they wanted the lies heard and answered: "Have you ever lied to your wife?" I should answer with "no" because they assumed, that that was a falsh answer.
T-Online: Was your wife in the same room?
Dschafar: (laughs) No, she wasn't. Then they asked me the days of the week and that I should telling be the truth. Then cam the important questions about nuclear weapons, chemical and biological weapons and so on. I always answered with "no". They repeated the test again twice. Finally, someone said: "Everything's in order, you have passed with honors." With a colleague of
mine in Baghdad, who gave himself up on 12 April - even in front of a camera of ZDF [German TV network] - it went exactly the same way.
T-Online: Were the Americans disappointed that nothing came out?
Dschafar: I believe they knew that there were no such weapons. I told they why: As they approached Baghdad they didn't do anything to secure the production or storage areas where the weapons were to have been. Everything was plundered, but the Americans interested themselves only for the Oil Ministry. All warehouses, even those with dual-use products (i.e. products that could be used for weapons as well as civilian purposes), those that the UN inspectors had already noted, were taken away and the Americans did nothing to stop it. Everything, except for the Oil Ministry, was not interesting. Had they really believed on [there were] weapons of mass destruction, they would have gone immediately to those locations, those that UNSCOM as suspected as a priority and secured everything there. For example there were hundreds of tons of HMX and RDX - two conventional, but very powerful explosives. They later disappeared. Likewise it went with the Army ammunition depots. Where do you think the assassins get all their explosives for all their assassinations? ["assassins" and "assassinations" are Dschafar's choice of words]. They came with trucks and simply loaded the stuff up.
T-Online: If there was nothing there, why didn't Saddam just leave the weapons inspectors in peace and let them do their work?
Dschafar: They could do that. They went where they wanted. At least after 2002. Before that there were reductions/restrictions for specific equipment, but later not anymore.
T-Online: You have met Saddam Hussein many times and also escorted him. In the beginning or the 1980's you sat by his order 20 months in prison. At the beginning of the 1990's you climbed to assistance Energy Minister. What was he like. Did you fear him?
Dschafar: No, it was a very normal relationship. I wasn't afraid of him. He didn't do anything...
T-Online: ...accept for this thing about prison...
Dschafar: Yeah, the prison. Back then I stood up for a colleague... (goes quiet)
T-Online: When did you meet him [Saddam] for the last time?
Dschafar: It was a couple months before the war. But you see: I led the nuclear weapons program in the 1980's. Later, after the 1991 War, I was busy only with the reconstruction of our electrical plants. All programs had been ended. Additionally I worked at this time with the IAEO. Our nuclear weapons program lasted nine years. The next twelve years I as I am explaining to you, that it was halted.
T-Online: What did Saddam want to do with nuclear weapons, those that you should have built in the 1980's?
Dschafar: He didn't share his plans with me.
T-Online: What do you believe?
Dschafar: Well, we never got to the point where one could develop a military strategy based on nuclear weapons. They were thought to be first of all a deterrent. You see: The program began in 1980. In the war with Iran, that began in 1981, noone particularly excersied a great deal of pressue on us to get these weapons finished. Only at the end of the war was the program worked with high pressure.
T-Online: Do you believe that the weapons would have been used against Iran, if you had gotten them done in time?
Dschafar: I personally don't think so. But that is only my opinion. They were a form of deterrence/intimidation.
T-Online: Out of a deterrence there can also become a reality.
Dschafar: That is right, particularly in an invasion. But alone that depends on what the other side of a deterrence had to offer. In the operation ,,Desert Storm" in January and February 1991 we had chemical and even biological weapons, but they were not deployed. Why? Because Saddam was intimidated by the military options of the Americans, above all from their nuclear weapons, but also from all the others. So, so when one had such weapons the negatives can be more [significant] and then one just leaves it be.
T-Online: What do you think about when you see Saddam today as a prisoner on trial?
Dschafar: I think if he has committed crimes, he should take the responsibility, just like anyone else. However the process should be fair and I have doubts about that, the one that the Iraqi legal system at the
moment offers. Just in the last ten days two of his lawyers were murdered and one wounded. Naturally, as president he also gave nobody a fair trial, but even though...
T-Online: You said: "If he committed crimes" - you have doubts about that?
Dschafar: One must still prove it in court. But that is not so simple. Everybody talks for example about the poison gas attack on the Kurds in Halabdscha. I don't know the details, but I have read a report from Stephen Pelletier. He was as the CIA man concerned with Iraq and later teacher at the US Army War College. In an article for the New York Times he wrote that it wasn't the Iraqis. The victims there - as stated in his article - were killed by a cyanide-based poison that Iraq didn't have, but Iran did. The Kurds there - they are under that leadership of Dschalal Talabini - fought on the side of Iran against Saddam. Pelletier's conclusions state that the Iranians had fired on the Iraqis and the wind drove the gas in the wrong direction.
T-Online: But in general opinion it was Ali Hassan al-Madshid alias ,,Chemical Ali" that lead the attack on the Kurds in order to punish their ooperation with Iran.
Dschafar: But not apparently in Halabdscha. One must look at the facts very closely. Pelletier hardly comes to idea to want to defend Saddam. It's something different with the story of the town Dujail north of Baghdad. There was an assassination attempt on Saddam. But his reaction to that - he allowed untold numbers townspeople to be killed - was simply brutal.
T-Online: Are you sorry for Saddam?
Dschafar: In some way perhaps. He should be held responsible if he has committed crimes. But to see the president of one's country in court, that's not easy.
The interview was conducted by Christian Kreutzer.