Saddam Hussein's 'Supergun'

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 20 February 2020

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

An insider's account of Project Babylon, the plan to build the largest gun in the world for Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The "Supergun" was the brainchild of Canadian artillery maverick, Dr Gerald Bull. He'd long wanted to build a gun capable of launching satellites into space. In the 1980s Saddam Hussein agreed to fund this plan. But was it a science project or a weapon? In 1990, the "Supergun" hit the headlines and it became an international scandal. Alex Last spoke to Chris Cowley an engineer who worked on Project Babylon,. Appropriately enough he has also become an author of thrillers. His latest book is called Without A Shadow.

Photo: UN inspectors visit the site of the 350mm (baby) Super Gun in Iraq. After the Gulf War, the gun components were broken up and destroyed.(UN)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.5	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.
0:18.0	What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC
0:35.4	Sounds.
0:38.4	Choosing what to watch.
0:39.4	Night after night.
0:41.1	The flicking through. The endless searching is a nightmare. We want to help you. On our
0:46.7	brand new podcast off the telly we share what we've been watching.
0:50.3	Cladie aider. Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming, lovely.
0:55.0	Off the telly with me Joanna Paige and me, Natalie Cassidy,
0:59.0	so your evenings can be a little less searching
1:02.0	and a lot more watching listen on BBC
1:04.7	sounds.
1:07.0	Hello and welcome to the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service with me Alex Last each
1:16.1	day first-hand accounts of events that shaped our world.
1:20.3	And today we go back to the 1980s and the project to build a super gun for Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
1:27.0	It's a tale of cutting edge science, government deception and murder.
1:42.0	Customs officers on T-side have found heavy military weaponry on board a ship which was bound for Iraq. They found eight crates weighing some 140 tons.
1:45.0	Each was labeled as heavy piping
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.