Washington: A top Iraqi nuclear scientist has surrendered in Iraq, a US official has
said as US forces stepped up a search for Iraqis who can shed light on the country's
weapons of mass destruction programmes.
Jaffar al Jaffar, a top nuclear scientist, turned himself in over the past few days,
the official said on April 13, speaking on condition of anonymity.
His surrender follows that of Lieutenant General Amir Saadi, Saddam's chief
scientific adviser, who turned himself in on April 12 with the help of Germany's ZDF
television network.
"Jaffar certainly would know about their nuclear programme as well as possible
locations of nuclear related facilities, and also would know a lot of people
associated with Iraq's nuclear programme, as well as likely other aspects of the WMD
programme," said the official.
"Hopefully he will be more forthcoming and candid than he has been to date," said
the official.
Saadi, for his part, told ZDF in an interview that Iraq no longer had weapons of
mass destruction.
"Hopefully what he says in private will be different than what he has been saying
public now that his circumstances have changed," said the US official.
Charges that Iraq was developing banned chemical and biological weapons and trying
to revive a nuclear capability in defiance of UN resolutions served as the primary
US justification for invading Iraq.
