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German Builder Says US Bombs
Can’t Bust Saddam’s Bunkers BERLIN, 29 March 2003 — The German architect of one of Saddam
Hussein’s main bunkers in Baghdad said yesterday the Iraqi leader can
survive anything short of a direct hit with a nuclear bomb if he stays
within its 1.5-meter thick walls. “It could withstand the shock wave of
a nuclear bomb the size of the Hiroshima one detonating 250 meters
away,” said Karl Esser, a security consultant who designed the bunker
underneath Saddam’s main presidential palace in Baghdad. US-led troops will also find it hard to fight their way in through its
three-ton Swiss-made doors, Esser told Reuters in an interview. A retired Yugoslav army officer who helped build other bunkers for
Saddam also said this week that the shelters were impenetrable and could
survive an atomic bomb. CNN reported yesterday that US B-52 bombers dropped a two ton (4,500
lb) “bunker busting” bomb on the capital for the first time in the
campaign. The palace bunker can accommodate 50 people and has two escape tunnels,
one leading 200 meters to the Tigris river. It was built in 1982 and 1983 by German firm Boswau & Knauer, which
merged into what is now the Walter-Bau AG building group. At the time
Esser was a consultant for a German government-sponsored civil protection
body and had his own company, Schutzraumtechnik Esser GmbH, which supplied
equipment for Saddam’s bunker. Esser said “bunker busting” bombs like the one dropped yesterday
would fail to penetrate the 1,800 square-meter bunker because they first
have to get though the palace built directly above it. “The presidential palace above gives natural protection so the bunker
can only be cracked by ground troops or a tactical nuclear bomb,” said
Esser. The bunker ceiling itself, made of steel-reinforced concrete and up to
two meters thick, was designed to withstand the direct impact of a 230-kg
bomb, said Esser. “It’s not a combat bunker, it’s an air raid shelter, otherwise it
would have had to be built with gun slits and a variety of other
features,” said Esser. “Ground troops could get in by taking out the
doors with bazookas and explosives.” Construction took place at a time
when Western companies were legally supplying Saddam with arms and
equipment during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. Esser remembers giving Saddam a personal tour of the bunker’s
features, which include a water tank, electricity generator, air filter,
30 square meter command center and so-called electromagnetic pulse
protection system — to shield electrical circuits from the impact of an
explosion. “He was satisfied,” said Esser. Esser said he had no qualms about having helped to protect a dictator
likened to Hitler. “It’s not just one person getting protection,
it’s several people, it’s the palace staff as well. I just see it as
an achievement of bunker technology,” he said.
Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors and they may not represent Al-Jazeerah's.
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