Top Iraqi Scientist Flees

The AP reports:

The Iraqi scientist who headed Saddam Hussein's long-range missile program has fled to neighboring Iran, a country identified as a state sponsor of terrorism with a successful missile program and nuclear ambitions, U.S. officers involved in the weapons hunt told The Associated Press.

Dr. Modher Sadeq-Saba al-Tamimi's departure comes as top weapons makers from Saddam's deposed regime find themselves eight months out of work but with skills that could be lucrative to militaries or terrorist organizations in neighboring countries. U.S. officials have said some are already in Syria and Jordan.

Experts long feared the collapse of Saddam's rule could lead to the kind of scientific brain-drain the United States tried to prevent as the former Soviet Union collapsed. But the Bush administration had no plan for Iraqi scientists and instead officials suggested they could be tried for war crimes.

...Two members of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency involved in questioning scientists in custody told AP the Iraqis continue to deny the existence of illicit weapons programs in Iraq. Dozens of Iraqi scientists have been questioned and less than 30 remain in custody. All of them, including senior members of Saddam's regime, have been subjected to lie-detector tests, which have come up clean on weapons questioning, the DIA officers said.

But U.S. scientists and weapons experts, who all spoke on condition of anonymity, said they're having trouble finding some Iraqi experts in Iraq and have no way of tracking ones they've met.

This story can be read as a) further proof that Iraq had no WMD program b) an implicit indictment of the Bush claim that invading Iraq would make the world safer from WMD proliferation or c) a story that rationalizes future interventions in neighboring states, say Syria and Iran. Take your pick.

Update: "The Bush administration is working on a $16 million plan to keep Iraqi scientists occupied with peaceful research at home instead of taking their expertise to countries or terrorist organizations that could threaten the United States," reports the AP.