Das ist Siemens!

Did the famous company help Saddam create nuclear weapons?

Another outrageous scandal broke out in Germany, the country that has recently been producing lots of scandalous news. Scandal arises after a scandal. This time it is Siemens. The well-known comapany is in the center of attention. The company is being accused of helping Saddam Hussein in produce nuclear weapons.

The core of the “sensation” is as follows. Financial Times Deutschland published an article saying that special medical interrupters used for splitting kidney stones can under definite conditions be used as a fuse in nuclear bombs. Siemens supplied several interrupters of this kind to Iraq from December 1998 to June 1999. Siemens spokespersons say that the interrupters can’t be used as fuses, as they are too weak. Armament experts and nuclear engineers say that there is nothing impossible and Iraq could probably use the interrupters, not for healing people, but for producing nuclear weapons.

This is probably quite true, but for one thing: the whole world has been anticipating a war campaign against Iraq for the several past weeks. The article in Financial Times Deutschland perfectly matches the limits of the information war waged by Washington against Baghdad. The statement that Iraq holds nuclear weapons or may develop them in the near future is one of the basic elements of this war.

However, American authorities still fail to convincingly prove this thesis. Therefore, German journalists have given a present to the White House. To tell the truth, the German newspaper wasn’t the first source to report the outrageous sensation about Siemens' interrupters as fuses. German radio station Suedwestrundfunk (SWR), which is hardly known outside Germany, was the first to announce the sensation on Sunday.

It is no secret that Washington and Berlin are at odds with America's coming war against Iraq. And the fact that such a respectable company as Siemens is involved in the scandal may become a trump card for Washington.

It is strange, but all experts whose opinions are mentioned in the publication are Americans. This concerns the objectivity of the analysis. However, objectivity already doesn't actually matter. It is more important that the world was told once again that Saddam has nuclear weapons. Now it’s his turn to justify himself, together with Siemens.

Vasily Bubnov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Maria Gousseva

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2002/10/07/48087.html

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