Overview: In this series, I examine some funky aspects of the story of Mahdi Obeidi, the Iraqi scientist who hid nuclear blueprints and centrifuge parts under his rose bush. The first post provides a timeline of Obeidi’s story. The second and third posts raise several problems with Obeidi’s story: the explanation for how the materials were preserved is unlikely, the blueprints don’t match details we know of said blueprints, and the prototype pieces Obeidi says he turned over don’t match the pictures the CIA released of them. In this post, I will look Kurt Pitzer’s role in the early part of the story.

As I’ve shown in the last two posts, there are reasons to doubt the materials Obeidi turned over to the Americans are authentic.These reasons are not enough, IMO, to discount the story entirely. But they raise enough questions to beg an examination of the provenance of the materials. How credible is Obeidi’s story about meeting Kurt Pitzer and through him negotiating a deal with the Americans?