When Saad Tawfiq watched Colin Powell’s presentation to the United Nations on February 5 2003 he shed bitter tears as he realised he had risked his life and those of his loved ones for nothing.
Those are the words from an article at The Raw Story that tells of how Tawfiq knew that Saddam Hussein had shut down all nuclear and chemical capabilities before the invasion of Iraq. The story says the information provided by Tawfiq could have, indeed, prevented a war.
Tawfiq was an engineer under Hussein. In his personal story, he tells of how he knew his country wasn’t producing weapons of mass destruction. And his family, he claims, was in a tough position in the days before Iraq was invaded by the United States and the British.
The tale of Tawfiq, and his sister Sawson, is about how the CIA worked toward finding information about the depth of Hussein’s nuclear program. When the reports were found to be that he had dismantled it in 1995, Tawfiq said his sister and his information went to the wayside. What they put their lives on the line for were basically disregarded.
“I was Saddam’s scientist,” Tawfiq declared, with an ironic smile. “In 1991 if you exposed something you were killed. In 1995 if you hid something you were killed!”