The Bomb in My Garden The Secrets of Saddam's Nuclear Mastermind

Acclaim for the Bomb in My Garden "This one book will tell you more about Iraq's quest for weapons of mass destruction than all U.S. intelligence on the subject. It is a fascinating and rare glimpse inside Saddam Hussein's Iraq-and inside a tyrant's mind." -Fareed Zakaria, author of The Future of Freedom "The Bomb in My Garden is important and utterly gripping. The old cliché is true-you start reading, and you don't want to stop. Mahdi Obeidi's story makes clear how hard Saddam Hussein tried to develop a nuclear weapon, and the reasons he fell short. It is also unforgettable as a picture of how honorable people tried to cope with a despot's demands. I enthusiastically recommend this book." -James Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic Monthly "One of the three or four accounts that anyone remotely interested in the Iraq debate will simply have to read. Apart from its insight into the workings of the Saddam nuclear project, it provides a haunting account of the atmosphere of sheer evil that permeated every crevice of Iraqi life under the old regime." -christopher hitchens, Slate "Mahdi Obeidi describes in jaw-dropping detail how Iraq acquired the means to produce highly enriched uranium, the key ingredient to building a nuclear weapon, by the eve of the first Gulf War. . . . [His book] offers insights into how a determined dictator, backed by sufficient resources, can come within reach of acquiring the world's most horrific weapons." -The Washington Post BookWorld

MAHDI OBEIDI oversaw Saddam's top-secret centrifuge program and later became director-general of Iraq's Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization. The few remaining components and plans for the uranium-enriching centrifuge that he voluntarily turned over to the United States during the war still represent the largest collection of evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

KURT PITZER began the Iraq war embedded with the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division and jumped his embed when Baghdad fell. He met Obeidi there and helped him turn his secrets over to the United States.