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.
