OH THOSE PESKY IRAQI WMD’S!
For almost three years, the conventional wisdom regarding Iraq WMD’s prior to our invasion was that Saddam never had them, we knew it, Bush lied, and we invaded anyway because we wanted their oil, or to establish military bases, or because George Bush is a meany, or because the Jews told us to, or…just because America is eeeevil and we like to throw our weight around just to remind the Europeans of that fact every once and while.
I pretty much accepted this CW - well, not all that other stuff but certainly the analysis that Saddam did not have WMD for years prior to our invasion. After all, this was the Duelfer Report’s conclusion (with one important caveat that we’ll get to in a minute) as well as the conclusion of several bi-partisan reports from Congress.
But something always bothered me about this conclusion, a nagging itch at the back of my mind. And that is the overwhelmingly belief by the world’s best intelligence agencies that Saddam did indeed have stockpiles of WMD in the six months leading up to the war. The French, the British, the Germans, The Israeli’s, the United Nations (UNSCOM and IAEA), not to mention the CIA, DIA, and most politicians here in this country.
That’s quite a number of people to be dead wrong about such a huge issue.
And that’s what’s always bothered me. It bothered Charles Duelfer also, the fair minded and thorough former CIA and State Department expert who also took a turn as an inspector for UNSCOM. In his report on WMD, one little noticed caveat that Duelfer mentioned appeared in an addendum to the document:
The CIA’s chief weapons inspector said he cannot rule out the possibility that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were secretly shipped to Syria before the March 2003 invasion, citing “sufficiently credible†evidence that WMDs may have been moved there.
Inspector Charles Duelfer, who heads the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), made the findings in an addendum to his final report filed last year. He said the search for WMD in Iraq—the main reason President Bush went to war to oust Saddam Hussein—has been exhausted without finding such weapons. Iraq had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in the early 1990s.
But on the question of Syria, Mr. Duelfer did not close the books. “ISG was unable to complete its investigation and is unable to rule out the possibility that WMD was evacuated to Syria before the war,†Mr. Duelfer said in a report posted on the CIA’s Web site Monday night.
This statement dovetails with some information released by a Pentagon Undersecretary John Shaw who said a few days before the election that the Russians were helping to spirit high explosives that had gone missing from a depot at Al-Qaqaa out of Iraq into Syria. Apparently, Putin was attempting to eliminate any evidence that the Russians had violated the sanctions regime by supplying Saddam with illegal weapons.
Then there was a little blurb about a press conference given by Israel’s Ariel Sharon that was shown in December of 2002 where the Prime Minister announced that Iraq WMD was being shipped to Syria’s Bekaa Valley:
Several different intelligence sources raised red flags about suspicious truck convoys from Iraq to Syria in the days, weeks, and months prior to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.[23]
These concerns first became public when, on December 23, 2002, Ariel Sharon stated on Israeli television, “Chemical and biological weapons which Saddam is endeavoring to conceal have been moved from Iraq to Syria.”[24] About three weeks later, Israel’s foreign minister repeated the accusation.[25] The U.S., British, and Australian governments issued similar statements.
Finally, there was this story about the UN losing track of WMD prior to the war and what satellite imagery showed:
U.N. satellite imagery experts have determined that material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles has been removed from 109 sites in Iraq, U.N. weapons inspectors said in a report obtained Thursday.
U.N. inspectors have been blocked from returning to Iraq since the U.S.-led war in 2003 so they have been using satellite photos to see what happened to the sites that were subject to U.N. monitoring because their equipment had both civilian and military uses.
In the report to the U.N. Security Council, acting chief weapons inspector Demetrius Perricos said he’s reached no conclusions about who removed the items or where they went. He said it could have been moved elsewhere in Iraq, sold as scrap, melted down or purchased.
Taken individually, these stories mean nothing. But I can’t be the only one who sees something of a pattern here. I think it is safe to assume that somebody was moving Iraq WMD (and the equipment to manufacture it) somewhere prior to the liberation.
And now we have a former Iraqi Air Force General who says that massive amounts of WMD was flown to Syria prior to the invasion.
The information comes to via this story in the New York Sun and features the General - who is selling a book called Saddam’s Secrets - talking about Iraqi passenger jets being used to whisk the WMD out of the country and flown to Syria:
The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein’s air force says Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were removed.
The Iraqi general, Georges Sada, makes the charges in a new book, “Saddam’s Secrets,” released this week. He detailed the transfers in an interview yesterday with The New York Sun.
“There are weapons of mass destruction gone out from Iraq to Syria, and they must be found and returned to safe hands,” Mr. Sada said. “I am confident they were taken over.”
Mr. Sada’s comments come just more than a month after Israel’s top general during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Moshe Yaalon, told the Sun that Saddam “transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria.”
General Sada is evidently being supported by a Christian humanitarian group out of Oklahoma run by a man named Terry Law. Sada, a Christian, works for the group as director of Iraqi outreach.
General Sada has several problems with this story, not the least of which is that it is secondhand information. He heard about it from two men who say they were pilots on the transports:
The pilots told Mr. Sada that two Iraqi Airways Boeings were converted to cargo planes by removing the seats, Mr. Sada said. Then Special Republican Guard brigades loaded materials onto the planes, he said, including “yellow barrels with skull and crossbones on each barrel.” The pilots said there was also a ground convoy of trucks.
The flights - 56 in total, Mr. Sada said - attracted little notice because they were thought to be civilian flights providing relief from Iraq to Syria, which had suffered a flood after a dam collapse in June of 2002.
While the information is certainly intriguing, it hardly qualifies as “smoking gun” evidence that Syria has the missing WMD.
That said, if the government were aware of Syrian collusion with Iraq to hide their stockpiles of WMD, why wouldn’t they announce it?
First of all, it would be very difficult to prove without revealing “sources and methods” that the CIA would rather remain a secret.
The second reason would be diplomatic. If we accused the Syrians and offered proof, then we would have to do something about it. This would complicate our efforts to effect regime change in Syria that right now are at a very delicate point. The UN is beginning to put more and more pressure on Baby Assad as the investigation into the assassination of Lebanese nationalist Rafiq Hariri continues to implicate high level Syrian intelligence and political figures. Eventually it is thought that the elites in the military and the government will see Assad as the dead weight that he is and get rid of him. After that, all bets are off and the US government may in fact start inquiring about what was transferred from Iraq to Syria prior to the war.
Next week, General Sada will meet with members of the Senate Armed Services committee. It should be interesting to see what might come out of that meeting although, don’t hold your breath for any bombshells. The last thing the White House wants at this point - even though it would permanently blunt some criticism about the war - is to make Syrian complicity in hiding Iraq WMD an issue.
UPDATE
Welcome Powerline readers! Thanks to John for the link and for highlighting this important story.
And the lovely Pamela at Atlas Shrugs is also on the story and says this:
I said it for years, it was the most logical explanation. This story will shape the November elections, and rightly so. I am sure the mainstream media will go out of its way to ignore this story instead it will whine about al qaida’s civil rights being violated in the New York Times manufactured scandal of the week.
Glad to know I’m not the only crazy right winger out there…
See also a great post at the blog Publius Rendevous who makes this prescient observation:
Does it take an enormous stretch of the imagination to see the enactment of this assertion? Are any mental gymnastics needed to piece together that Saddam had all the time he needed to transport or hide the WMDs? In the transparency of their position, the Democrats and liberals failed to give any credence whatsoever to the fact that in a country the size of California, and with the time actually spent galvanizing a coalition, that Saddam had ample time to cover his tracks in whatever solution he chose to implement.
Make sure you hit Macsmind for a surprising answer to the question “Which United States Senator is in big trouble over this news?”
UPDATE II
I had totally forgotten about this interview with former UNSCOM inspector and intelligence agent Bill Tierney that appeared in Frontpage Mag who also thought the WMD had been moved to Syria. (HT: Sister Toldjah).
UPDATE III: THE “SADDAM TAPES”
Here’s a shocker sent to me by Doc Gardner at Maggies Farm. Apparently a civilian contractor in Iraq is claiming he found some audio tapes that purport to have Saddam Hussein discussing his WMD with aides as late as 2000.
The tapes will be revealed next month at The Intelligence Summitt which is being put together by John Loftus, a former intelligence agent, Justice Department attorney and frequent analyst on several cable networks.
More grist for the mill…
And reader ROdioso emails me with a link to this WA Times story from last April where the plot to blow up a truck laden with poison gas and other chemicals in Jordan was thwarted at the last minute.
The truck was stopped 75 miles from the Syrian border.
Don’t miss Mark in Mexico’s article on General Sada’s book Saddam’s Secrets. He’s got extensive quotes and background info on the general.
You know that the ‘left’ is just going to claim that this General is one of Rove’s newest clowns……
I for one that that there is a treasure trove of WMD buried in Syria. To bad that we have to wait for Assad to be removed to find out for sure.
Comment by Fred Fry — 1/26/2006 @ 9:21 am
I’ve said this for a long time to anyone who would listen. You are correct to point out that this is no “smoking gun.” Also it may turn out that the conventional wisdom that says Saddam did not have WMD prior to the invasion may yet turn out to be correct. At a minimum, the investigation into what was transferred into Syria will need to be completed. Please stay on this story.
Btw, I hope this Iraqi general has very thick skin. Generally the main stream media will viciously attack people who publically deviate from their talking points.
Comment by B.Poster — 1/26/2006 @ 9:59 am
How terribly frustrating it will be for some if it turns out that Bush was right…again??
Comment by AcademicElephant — 1/26/2006 @ 10:02 am
Senator Rockefeller - You are in trouble
As I told you here, a “little birdie” is sqawking, speaking things about how a certain Senator “tipped off” Iraq about what was to come.
Trackback by Macmind - Conservative Commentary and Common Sense — 1/26/2006 @ 10:09 am
Saddam had ample warning of an impending attack as president Bush had to do the UN dance to keep the Dems happy. Wonder why he didn’t keep at least some of it to use against US troops.
Comment by Santay — 1/26/2006 @ 10:11 am
And also ‘diplomatic’ because if we found the weapons, we’d be able to ID exactly who has been helping the Iraqies build them - and it doesn’t seem obvious that ANYONE has any interest in that…
Comment by Rawsnacks — 1/26/2006 @ 10:11 am
Saddam’s #2 air force official: WMDs were moved to Syria
You won’t see much examinatino of this in the anti-Bush/Iraq war MSM, but the NY Sun has an article up today that quotes Saddam’s number 2 air force guy as saying Saddam’s WMD were moved to Syria before the Iraq war:
The man who ser…
Trackback by Sister Toldjah — 1/26/2006 @ 10:12 am
Senator Rockefeller - you are in trouble.
http://macsmind.blogspot.com/2006/01/senator-rockefeller-you-are-in-trouble.html
Comment by macranger — 1/26/2006 @ 10:13 am
It is pretty ironic that Iraq fought a devasting war with Iran to the tune of 1 million dead only to then have so much sweat of its labor virtually handed over to Iran’s new proxy state - if the allegations prove true, which consistent with your view is perfectly plausable given the alarming consensus in the western intelligence agencies. If indeed weaponry has made its way from Syria into the Bekaa Valley, then we should all be concerned. Wouldn’t it be the height of irony if somehow the west were to take action against Iran and Hezballah, already supplied to the hilt with ammunition and rockets from the midget in the middle, suddenly found themselves in command of WMD. Not so ironic for Israel!
The tortured logic of inaction will now be tested given Hamas’ election victory. It is baffling to listen to the appease them first crowd suggesting that there is no better leadership alternative? no better alternative? How about rephrasing the question - what could be worse? The same goes for Iran. The whole line of reasoing is so nonsensical, but then again I havn;t mastered the nuanse that got us to the brink. Time to bring in the A team, not the State team.
Comment by s — 1/26/2006 @ 10:18 am
This is ridiculous. Next thing somebody will claim is that Syria is under Baath Party control, just like Iraq!
Comment by Z-Man — 1/26/2006 @ 10:41 am
The “CW” has always been BS. The best-kept secret of the war is that we did find WMD in Iraq. Like Pres. Clinton claiming that oral sex isn’t sex, the CIA simply re-defined the WMD we found out of existance.
At some weapons depots, we found stocks of empty chemical artillery shells and rocket warheads. A few yards away, we found drums labeled as pesticide which contained the two chemicals Iraq used in their binary formulation of VX. If the “pesticide” had been poured into the chemical shells, it would have been “weaponized”, and CIA would have called it a WMD. Since the nerve gas was found in a barrel next to the empty gas shells, we can’t prove that anyone ever considered using it as a weapon. We have to give Saddam the benefit of presumption of innocence. After all, doesn’t everyone keep their can of Raid in a camoflaged underground bunker?
Comment by Roger — 1/26/2006 @ 10:58 am
http://haloscan.com/tb/aredphishhead/113829050158561995
Comment by The Good Lt — 1/26/2006 @ 11:21 am
Sorry - I can’t get my trackbacks to work - linked to you post today. Nice work, as always!
http://aredphishhead.blogspot.com/2006/01/iraqi-wmds-revisited-evidence-of.html
Comment by The Good Lt — 1/26/2006 @ 11:23 am
This is not new information.
DEBKA has this information in 2003: The Soviets/Russians helped Iraq move the weapons to Syria.
Can’t find the links.
Comment by patch — 1/26/2006 @ 11:39 am
And remember…….Jay Rockefeller in
January 2002. He went to Jordan, Saudia Arabia and SYRIA. He then disclosed to all three dictators that the decision to go to war has already been made. So it’s not to far fetched to say he had an EXTRA
YEAR to plan on moving this stuff.
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/bennett200511141541.asp
Comment by Masonn — 1/26/2006 @ 11:52 am
WHERE DID THE WMD GO?
Ira Stoll at the New York Sun has the story of the day that the rest of the MSM won’t be covering. Intro: The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein’s air force says Iraq moved…
Trackback by Michelle Malkin — 1/26/2006 @ 1:10 pm
Hearsay Claim: Saddam’s WMDs Secreted To Syria (Bumped For Updates)
So says now the number two man in Saddam’s air force, who claims he was told of the transfers by “very good friends” who served as pilots on the smuggling mission. Before you get your hopes up– he just happens…
Trackback by Ace of Spades HQ — 1/26/2006 @ 1:15 pm
What? Even given the peace dividend and Clinton cutting defense and intelligence budgets deeper than the bone, clearly the Bush administration should have known, and is crimanlly negligent for not knowing not only what planes which WMD were flown out on, but where they left those d@mn seats.
(don’t bother me with the facts when opionion is so much more fun)
Comment by Ari Tai — 1/26/2006 @ 1:17 pm
Who is Georges Sada and why should we care?
The Sun goes into little detail to tell us who Sada is, or, more importantly, who he was. You might like to know a little more about Mr. Sada in order to establish his bonafides in your own minds.
Trackback by Mark in Mexico — 1/26/2006 @ 1:29 pm
[...] ed the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria.†Others blogging on this are Atlas Shruggs Rick Moran Publius Rendezvous Macsmind
» | Permalink
[...]
Pingback by Right Voices » » Syria and Iraq’s WMD’s — 1/26/2006 @ 1:30 pm
Isn’t funny how high a standard the Right has to call something a “smoking gun” vs. how low a standard the Left needs.
Comment by Joe C. — 1/26/2006 @ 1:32 pm
The Deputy Chief of Saddam Hussein’s air force
says in a new book that Iraq moved WMD into Syria before the war: The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein’s air force says Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war…
Trackback by Irish Pennants — 1/26/2006 @ 1:53 pm
Saddam’s Secrets - By Georges Sada
Georges Sada’s book, Saddam’s Secrets, is out.
…
Trackback by Myopic Zeal — 1/26/2006 @ 1:58 pm
It is a false statement by Bush administration officials when they say, “NO WMDs were found”. It is a true statement if someone says ,”No ‘massive stockpiles’ of WMDs have been made public”.
Duelfer admits that one third of the mustard gas armaments Saddam admitted to having, were later discovered. The Poles bought Biochems from insurgents, and a number of biological cultures and binary warheads were discovered. If you read Duelfer, Kay, and even Blix, for god’s sake, you will find evidence of what Tariq Aziz described as a drive for delivery vehicles (missles) and a biochem program focused on rapid production of deadly materials in days NOT weeks.
I can’t believe people can watch 24 and see enough nerve gas to destroy LA merging onto the 10 Freeway in a UPS truck and believe it, but not believe how easy it would have been for Aziz and Saddam to pull off the WMD evacuation.
The key component of Saddam’s plan was knowing he would have a compliant media to back him up in the west.
Comment by TJ King — 1/26/2006 @ 2:10 pm
WMDs in Syria?
Be sure to also go read Rick Moran’s roundup and commentary at Rightwing Nuthouse…
Trackback by Conservababes: Right from New Fallujah — 1/26/2006 @ 2:12 pm
On WMD
“Trust but verify” has given way to “delay, deal, and delay some more.” Has no one learned the lessons from Iraq?
Trackback by A Blog For All — 1/26/2006 @ 2:41 pm
Don’t forget the aborted chemical attack on Amman where Jordan said the chemical weapons had been transported from Syria. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,118203,00.html
Comment by clarice feldman — 1/26/2006 @ 2:42 pm
Iraq WMDs Unanswered Questions
I ran into this post at Rightwingnuthouse and I can tell you it’s not nutty at all. Damn good post, damn good questions.Rightwingnuthouse : For almost three years, the conventional wisdom regarding Iraq WMD’s prior to our invasion was that…
Trackback by The Jawa Report — 1/26/2006 @ 2:43 pm
UPDATE - SADDAM’S WMDs IN SYRIA
HT Atlas Shrugs
Is President Bush’s Administration now playing a Rove Trump card openly in the poker game with the French, the Russians, and the Chinese to rein in the Mad Mullahs of Iran?
The Israelis are signaling they wil…
Trackback by Rocket's Brain Trust — 1/26/2006 @ 2:46 pm
Saddam’s WMDs in Syria?
According to an interview in today’s New York Sun, the man who was the number two officer in Saddam’s air force says large quantities of chemical and biological weapons were shipped to Syria in converted civilian airliners prior to the…
Trackback by The Cigar Intelligence Agency — 1/26/2006 @ 3:02 pm
Let’s also not forget, immediately after Baghdad fell, the Russian “diplomat” envoy that came under fire AFTER they said they had evacuated all their people. What were they still doing there? Helping to get rid of evidence right up to the last second perhaps? I think they were shocked to find the military had reached Baghdad so quickly.
What leaves me befuddled is why Saddam had his Russian MiG-25s buried in the sand rather than deploy them in defense. Anyone have an answer for that? If he had the time to bury such large pieces of equipment, he had the time to do a whole lot more.
Comment by Oyster — 1/26/2006 @ 3:17 pm
The Russian MiG-25’s were buried in 1991, NOT in 2003. His reason… insanity, of course. ???
Syria has been a MAJOR PRODUCER of Chemical agents and weapons for 25 years. They have been afraid to use them….so far at least.
It is a PROVEN FACT that Sadamn had Chemical Weapons and used them at least twice.. against the Kurds at Halabja and in battles against Iranian soldiers. What concerns me the most is the Biological weapons agents, of which Anthrax is probably the most benign known agent they had and Anthrax was used by someone in the U.S. as you know! I suspect they were working on Ebola type virus cultures! God Forbid!
Comment by leaddog2 — 1/26/2006 @ 3:54 pm
Eventually, the Truth Comes Out
Let’s see, how does it go?
“Bush lied, people died.” “We made a mistake.” “We now know there were no Iraqi WMDs.” The left has assidulously erected an imaginary alternative reality for itself, in whi…
Trackback by Never Yet Melted — 1/26/2006 @ 4:18 pm
Former Saddam General: WMDs Moved To Syria. Expect Media Silence
If you don’t already know, “Where did the WMDs go?”, is something I’m obsessed with. I haven’t been able to, and don’t think I ever will accept the “bad intel, they were never there” line. It just doesn’t make sense…
Trackback by RightWinged.com — 1/26/2006 @ 4:22 pm
In mid december the coalition released after 2 years detention without charges 2 women Dr. Germ and Mrs Anthrax. afetr 2 years the coalition finally believed what they had said, that there were NO functioning Biological or Chemical programs. http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/30168/ I can not believe that they would be released if the coalition had ANY remaining concerns. As far as nuclear weapons this requires a HUGE infrastructure and there was not any evidence by any credible source that this existed.People bekieve in what they WISH to believe: religion, ufos, Boston Red Sox,Santa Claus et al. Governments are able to collect taxes by 2 methods by providing services or thru fear. The boogey man was Saddam then bin Laden now ……
Comment by john ryan — 1/26/2006 @ 4:52 pm
Saddam’s General Says Iraq’s WMD Went to Syria
Iraqi General, Georges Sada, has written a book titled, Saddam’s Secrets. According to The New York Sun, Sada claims that Saddam sent all of his WMDs to Syria via commercial airliners:There are weapons of mass destruction gone out from Iraq
Trackback by QT Monster's Place — 1/26/2006 @ 4:56 pm
#35 John:
First of all, I hope I put enough qualifiers in their to show that the information is highly speculative. The undeniable fact is that these reports have been coming out for nearly 3 years - and not from tin foil hatters. The Prime Minister of Israel? I’d say that’s a pretty good source.
That said, I agree it is not logical nor likely. But something was moved to Syria in the weeks leading up to the invasion. Wouldn’t you want to know what it was?
Comment by Rick Moran — 1/26/2006 @ 4:59 pm
no doubt there were weapons, chemicals and whatever technology and tools to make rockets and whatnot. It must have been looted early on and hidden or moved, orrrr just maybe this is the ultimate trump card - to be “discovered” when PR is really in trouble?
Comment by Ficsher — 1/26/2006 @ 4:59 pm
As for releasing the scientists, we released the German A-bomb scientists within months of the end of the war. They promptly found work in Russia and the US.
As for the two women, what possible danger were they? Saddam is in jail and no one in Iraq is going to ask them to reconstitute the WMD program. Why not release them?
Their release has no bearing on whether or not Syria has any of Iraq’s WMD.
Comment by Rick Moran — 1/26/2006 @ 5:02 pm
#38
Only a paranoid idiot would believe that if the Administration knew there were WMD’s they wouldn’t have released the info prior to the election.
How much more “PR trouble” can you be in than almost losing an election?
Get. A. Grip. And adjust your tin foil hat…
Comment by Rick Moran — 1/26/2006 @ 5:06 pm
Where are the sites in Iraq where chemical or biological WMD’s were destroyed? Pesticide components in binary nerve gas are hard to destroy with heat and would leave easily traceable residues in soil or furnace. Dumping would leave a kill zone. Same thing could occur with biologicals. No documentation or witness been found to support destruction of WMD’s either. Most of Saddam’s best weapons went to Syria.
Comment by Plant Doc — 1/26/2006 @ 5:32 pm
WMD’s in Syria? So says two Generals from two different countries, Iraq and Israel…can they both be wrong?
President Bush dithered prior to going to war with Iraq, wasting tremendous amounts of time with diplomacy. While he was wasting this time, Saddam was busy making plans for the defense of Iraq and the return of his regime. He also made plans for ……
Trackback by The Pink Flamingo Bar Grill — 1/26/2006 @ 6:03 pm
The funniest and saddest things about the WMD’s is how much of a bunch of losers the Democrats really are and how bad that is for our country. After all they had the money issue staring at them across the table, the issue that would have galvanized moderates and leftists together with not a few right wingers and they simply ignored it.
A true opposition party interested in the well being of the country would have pillored President Bush for failing to round up the weapons we all knew were there. They would have rightly pointed out that he risked the well being of our country by delaying long enough for Saddam to actually do with the weapons what President Bush supposedly went to Iraq to stop, give them to terrorists and their sponsor nations.
But naturally they won’t ever do anything of the sort. And naturally the Right won’t ever actually hold President Bush to account for failing to find those weapons. Jordon almost paid for it with estimated casualties of 80,000 had those weapons gone off.
WMD’s in Syria? So says two Generals from two different countries, Iraq and Israel…can they both be wrong?
Comment by Pierre Legrand — 1/26/2006 @ 6:54 pm
Where are the Iraqi WMD’s?
Georges Sada, an ex Iraqi Air Force big-wig, says that Syria has them:The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein’s air force says Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war by loading
Trackback by Brutally Honest — 1/26/2006 @ 7:20 pm
The story of the day….
….is that Iraq moved its WMD to Syria — this according to former Iraqi Vice Air Marshal Georges Sada.The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein’s air f…
Trackback by Media Lies — 1/27/2006 @ 12:03 am
[...] ing army toppled his regime, how dumb can we be? Never would happen. (/sarcasm) Gotta plug Rightwing Nuthouse for his excellent post about this subject with lot [...]
Pingback by Flopping Aces » Blog Archive » Iraq’s WMD’s In Syria — 1/27/2006 @ 12:07 am
All of a sudden one of Saddam’s generals has instant credibility? Consider the source. Why should I believe this General Sada and what documented evidence does he have to back up his claims? How do I know he was even a real general? And why should I believe anyone else’s claims that he really, truly, held this position in Saddam’s military, and is he telling the truth? He sounds like just another schlub peddling a book.
Try to take everything you read and hear on the news or your favorite political show with a grain of salt.
Comment by Johnny Tremaine — 1/27/2006 @ 12:18 am
Credible Report That Saddam Moved WMD To Syria
With all we know about the Syrian regime today, it is not hard to imagine them assisting Saddam in the concealment of his WMD.
The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein’s air force says Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction i…
Trackback by SoCalPundit — 1/27/2006 @ 12:19 am
[...] f we think they’re in Syria, then we should step up the pressure on the Assads. Also read this post by Rick Moran who has similar concerns to mine and who note [...]
Pingback by Dangerous Dan » What About Those Iraqi WMDs? — 1/27/2006 @ 2:16 am
More evidence
Saddam’s WMDs were moved to Syria:
The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein’s air force says Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger …
Trackback by ProCynic — 1/27/2006 @ 2:23 am
Breaking news: Proof Saddam had WMDs
I’ll be back later with more — Two fellow ‘Nam vets have been feeding me info I haven’t had time to deal with yet — but for the moment go read Where Did The WMD Go? at Michelle’s place. ***
Trackback by Small Town Veteran — 1/27/2006 @ 2:57 am
If I were a partisan republican I wouldn’t exactly be shouting about this latest development. Syria, unlike Iraq, has a long history of supporting anti-US terrorrists. How well do you think it will play with the American public when you tell them that yes indeed, Iraq had WMD, justifying the invasion of Iraq, but uh, said invasion was such a screw-up that said WMD were allowed to slip away to an even more evil regime than Iraq? How well do you think it will play in the public when you tell them that we have to invade Syria now, so we can recover those WMD we were after (since that was a main objective of the war anyway)?
Listen, I used to vote republican. I voted for Bush I twice. I think a large part of Clinton’s victory had everything to do with the fact that the Republicans were upset with Bush I over A: the “no new taxes” issue, and B: stopping at the Iraqi border in the Gulf War. I saw the wisdom of Bush I on both these points and like most republicans at the time, I supported him. All of you new republicans might learn something if you read some of this history. I only vote libertarian now.
Comment by Casey — 1/27/2006 @ 8:53 am
This story came out a few years ago and no one seemd to care.
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20030820-081256-6822r.htm
Comment by Nudnik — 1/27/2006 @ 10:53 am
Fly By 01/27/06
Lots and lots happening - and no time to blog! (Plus updates imbedded below!)
Well, let’s just have a quick Fly By of great posts from others with a little more time on their hands. Beginning with my current obsession - the NSA-FISA dust up…
Trackback by The Strata-Sphere — 1/27/2006 @ 12:48 pm
It’s Syria All Over Again!
I’ve blogged about this at least twice before. Check out my previous posts for a “stockpile” of other evidence. It only takes common sense in order to “connect the dots” on this one, folks.
Trackback by Mike's Noise — 1/27/2006 @ 12:54 pm
WMD were allowed to slip away to an even more evil regime than Iraq?
Plays just fine with me. I clearly remember who the obstructionists were that caused the delay.
Bush I was pretty upset with “no new taxes” too, because he knows full well which party stabbed him in the back on that deal. He screwed up: he trusted the untrustworthy.
Comment by DaveG — 1/27/2006 @ 2:56 pm
I can just hear the liberal looney left now…..
“See, we told you there were no WMDs in Iran because SADDAM MOVED THEM.”
And it amuses me that the libs are asking why did Sada wait three years to write his book (maybe Hillary’s ghost writers had another job?); was he really what he claimed he was; where is his proof (but yet the left took every word that ever came from Joe Wilson’s lying mouth as gosple).
The liberals elites assume that everyone is dumber that dirt if they are not fellow liberal elites. And to their mistake, they assumed that Saddam was stupid as well. They don’t give Saddam the credit he deserved. He did not rise to power because he was stupid. He combined brawn with brains. He also has an ego the size of Alaska. I have no doubt that in the months of sabre rattling prior to our invastion of Iraq that Saddam took the time (thank you, UN)to remove the WMDs. What better way to make the US look like fools. Ship them to Syria, wait until you show the world that the evil US was lying about your WMDs and then move them back.
We have found WMD components. Enough to do the damage that everyone feared when put together. But it is totally ignored by the LLMSM because it does not fit the “Bush lied” mantra.
Even Duelfur believed that the moving of Saddam’s WMDs to Syria held a deal deal of credibility. Ummm, that also went pretty well ignored by the MSM. And can anyone deny the photos of the convoys in Iraq heading toward the Syrian border shortly before the co-alition invasion?
One correction I would like to make to someone who said Syria was not a Baathist government. It is.
So the MiddleEastern power stuggle continues. Iraq was an enemy to Iran but with Iraq removed as that enemy, Syria, once Saddam’s best buddy, is now positioning itself to be the big dog of the Middle East, cozying up to Iran. And who do they have in common? That evil capitalist, Christian nation, the U.S.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend”.
Comment by retire05 — 1/27/2006 @ 4:55 pm
I will not embrace this most recent story to validate the recently unclassified CIA report, but it increases the probablility of it.
The Truth: In my 29 years as a public school teacher, I had the opportunity of discovering the most devious methods that the worst students used to hide drugs and other contraband. The FBI, and SLED here have published many others also. Most people who have been looking and/or reading the news since 1991 when Sadam Hussein invaded and “raped” Kuwait, claiming it as his “22nd” (it recall) province. He was much more crafty that those teenagers, the mafia, gangs in the US, and other criminals.
Comment by Chief RZ — 1/27/2006 @ 5:20 pm
You mention John Loftus and his upcoming Intelligence Summitt. Loftus was the first individual I heard that indicated that Saddam’s WMDs were in Syria, that coming on a Sunday interview on FoxNewsChannel in April or May, 2004. He also made the same assertions on Larry Elder’s radio show in ealry May, 2004 and the discussion was written up on Elder’s Townhall.com column of May 6, 2004. Others followed with the same or similar information, such as Jed Babbin, Bill Gertz, Rowan Scarborough, NRO’s Jim Geraghty and James Robinson. The assertions were made that the WMDs were hidden in 3 or 4 specific places in the Bekaa Valley, such as an air force factory in the village of Tal Sinan, in a tunnel in the mountains near the village of Baida, and in the village of Shinshar. BTW, one DEBKA report is from a year previous (May 4, 2003) and was at http://www.debka.com/article_print.php?/aid=482.
Comment by Jim B — 1/27/2006 @ 8:39 pm
I thought the invasion of Iraq wasn’t about WMD’s - it was about liberating the Iraqi people. At least, that’s what conservatives have claimed, again and again, since the WMD rationale came up empty. Interesting to see the argument that was actually made before the UN coming back into vogue all of a sudden.
Comment by James — 1/28/2006 @ 3:31 am
James,
The facts are simple:
Sadamn needed to be removed. He was!
The Iranian Mullahs need to be removed. They WILL BE!
All al-Queda members need to die. They WILL. Most as they have liveed, VIOLENTLY.
Radical Islamists must be destroyed on Planet Earth. They will be, but it will probably take 50 years or so.
Comment by leaddog2 — 1/28/2006 @ 3:02 pm
[...] dieran que Israel se desarmase. Pero hay más todavÃa. Según un informe de la CIA (vÃa Right Wing Nut House): Mr. Duelfer -CIA’s chief weapons inspector- [...]
Pingback by Eurabian News » Las armas de destrucción masiva de Iraq — 1/28/2006 @ 5:29 pm
[...] dieran que Israel se desarmase. Pero hay más todavÃa. Según un informe de la CIA (vÃa Right Wing Nut House): Mr. Duelfer -CIA’s chief weapons inspector- [...]
Pingback by Eurabian News » Las armas de destrucción masiva de Iraq — 1/28/2006 @ 5:29 pm
Somebody should do the math and decide how much could have been flown…and yep, if you were to fly it out, I would guess you’d ideally have a cover.
Because otherwise, a truck convoy, well, that could show up easily on a sat photo.
Comment by Aaron — 1/29/2006 @ 12:58 pm
[...] e to the idea that Iraq had WMD, and that the reason they weren’t found is they were shipped to Syria? Ain’t gonna happen. To anti-war leftists, it [...]
Pingback by KirstenMortensen.com » Blog Archive » Protest march to nowhere — 1/29/2006 @ 2:13 pm
I’ve been wondering about this possibility too. Nice, interesting piece you have here.
BUT
pressures and diplomacy are at a ‘delicate moment’… the Middle East is always at a ‘delicate moment’, be it in the peace process (when there was one), in negotiations with Iran (what happened to no negotiations with terrorists?), and so on. I suggest that as you said, the US can’t do anything, but it can’t because
a) the army’s busy
b) islamists providing health care a la Hamas would probably sweep elections
c) theres no one to replace assad. bad as he is, he’s a known quantity, relatively stable in his instability if you know what I mean.
Comment by lecentre — 1/29/2006 @ 11:39 pm
Iraq’s WMD Secreted in Syria, Says Iraqi General
From The New York Sun:
The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein’s air force says Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were re…
Trackback by The Uncooperative Blogger — 1/30/2006 @ 1:44 pm
I have a few more references in my files–eg the #2 US general in Iraq says the same in his book. I’ll send them along as soon as I get your address in my files.
Comment by R. Ogmundson — 2/1/2006 @ 4:09 pm
[...] out who leaked Valerie Plame’s name. And the Right Wing Nuthouse weighs in on this….. OH THOSE PESKY IRAQI WMD’S! Other articles on this subject WMDR [...]
Pingback by The Absurd Report » Iraq’s WMD Secreted in Syria, Sada Says BY IRA STOLL — 2/8/2006 @ 2:37 am
Oh, Those Pesky Pro-War Imbeciles
It’s not fair to call someone an imbecile for making a mistake — or even several mistakes. It is however fair to call someone an imbecile for ceaselessly repeating a thoroughly discreditted claim. Of course, no pro-war rationale is ever…
Trackback by The Staton Jones Report — 2/8/2006 @ 2:49 pm
The American Thinker
A second Iraqi former commander confirms WMDs
Slowly, very slowly, we are beginning to discover what happened to the WMDs of
Saddam. The left and the antique media have made it an article of faith that
there never were any WMDs, and that “Bush lied.†So deep is their investment in
a political position premised on this conclusion that they will pay no attention
to contrary evidence.
Via Peter Glover’s website Wires from the bunker, we learn of an interview
between Ali Ibrahim al-Tikriti, a southern regional commander for Saddam
Hussein’s Fedayeen militia in the late 1980s and a personal friend of the
dictator and Ryan Mauro of Worldthreats.com.
Only two weeks ago, General Sada, formerly Sadaam’s no 2 Air Force Commander,
told the New York Sun that Sadaam’s WMD was moved to Syria just six weeks before
the US-led invasion. Now Ali Ibrahim confirms this and explains the underlying
strategy of Saddam:
I know Saddam’s weapons are in Syria due to certain military deals that were
made going as far back as the late 1980’s that dealt with the event that
either capitols were threatened with being overrun by an enemy nation. Not to
mention I have discussed this in-depth with various contacts of mine who have
confirmed what I already knew. At this point Saddam knew that the United
States were eventually going to come for his weapons and the United States
wasn’t going to just let this go like they did in the original Gulf War. He
knew that he had lied for this many years and wanted to maintain legitimacy
with the pan Arab nationalists. He also has wanted since he took power to
embarrass the West and this was the perfect opportunity to do so. After Saddam
denied he had such weapons why would he use them or leave them readily
available to be found? That would only legitimize President Bush, who he has a
personal grudge against. What we are witnessing now is many who opposed the
war to begin with are rallying around Saddam saying we overthrew a sovereign
leader based on a lie about WMD. This is exactly what Saddam wanted and
predicted.
Moreover, Ali Ibrahim debunks other shibboleths of the left, including the
allegation of no ties between al Qaeda terror and Saddam:
As far as Al-Qaeda is concerned this support was limited for a long time,
mainly due to the fact that Al-Qaeda had the hopes of creating an Islamic
empire while Saddam wanted a secular Arab nationalist empire. They only really
came to terms in the mid-90’s due to the fact that both knew they shared the
same short term enemy. Once they came to terms on this Saddam provided
Al-Qaeda with intelligence support and whatever money or munitions they could
provide. Saddam has had very long standing contacts in the black market as
well as with Moscow and would provide whatever munitions he could through
these contacts.
He also addresses the claim that the US bears responsibility for bringing Saddam
to power and for armning him with WMDs:
This is absolutely ludicrous. I was in the Ba’athist Revolution who received
support from the Soviet Union because of the socialist ideology behind it. The
Soviet Union openly supported and backed the Ba’athist revolution in Iraq at
the time and I am sure you can find news articles about it in European press
agencies and others at the time. I was there helping with the revolution and
worked on two occasions with Soviet KGB officials to help train us, much like
the United States did with the Taliban during the Soviet campaign in
Afghanistan. The United States never directly gave us any WMDs but rather
ingredients. They were not mixed and these ‘ingredients’ could have been
easily used for commercial use but were rather used to build low life chemical
weapons.
The tape recordings of Saddam discussing WMDs are said by Ryan Mauro of
Worldthreats.com to be a “smoking cannon.†If all of this information proves
out, the left in the US and UK are going to face an awful reckoning. As usual,
it will take some time for the new information to travel from the blogosphere to
the alternative media, and finally into the antique media.
Thomas Lifson 2 15 06
UPDATE: Reader David Bell writes:
In debunking the myth that the U.S. funded, armed and equipped Saddam and
therefore is somehow responsible for him, Gen. Sada, unfortunately,
perpetuates another. Namely, that the U.S. “trained†the Taliban. He says the
Soviets trained the Iraqis “much like the U.S. did with the Taliban during the
Soviet campaign in Afghanistan.†The U.S. had a role in equipping and training
some anti-SovietAfghan forces in northern Afghanistan during the Soviet
invasion, but these people later become the Northern Alliance that fought
against the Taliban, which was a largely Arab-led movement. The U.S. never
trained or in any other wat supported the Taliban or forces that later turned
into the Taliban. This is just as big a myth of the Left as the story that the
U.S. trained and equipped Saddam.
I can’t indpendently confirm this, but it sounds consistent with my vague
memories.
Comment by Russ — 2/18/2006 @ 3:29 pm
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Ex-Official: Russia Moved Saddam’s WMD
Kenneth R. Timmerman
Sunday, Feb. 19, 2006
A top Pentagon official who was responsible for tracking Saddam Hussein’s
weapons programs before and after the 2003 liberation of Iraq, has provided the
first-ever account of how Saddam Hussein “cleaned up” his weapons of mass
destruction stockpiles to prevent the United States from discovering them.
“The short answer to the question of where the WMD Saddam bought from the
Russians went was that they went to Syria and Lebanon,” former Deputy
Undersecretary of Defense John. A. Shaw told an audience Saturday at a privately
sponsored “Intelligence Summit” in Alexandria, Va. (www.intelligencesummit.org)
“They were moved by Russian Spetsnaz (special forces) units out of uniform, that
were specifically sent to Iraq to move the weaponry and eradicate any evidence
of its existence,” he said.
Shaw has dealt with weapons-related issues and export controls as a U.S.
government official for 30 years, and was serving as deputy undersecretary of
defense for international technology security when the events he described today
occurred.
He called the evacuation of Saddam’s WMD stockpiles “a well-orchestrated
campaign using two neighboring client states with which the Russian leadership
had a long time security relationship.”
Shaw was initially tapped to make an inventory of Saddam’s conventional weapons
stockpiles, based on intelligence estimates of arms deals he had concluded with
the former Soviet Union, China and France.
He estimated that Saddam had amassed 100 million tons of munitions –- roughly 60
percent of the entire U.S. arsenal. “The origins of these weapons were Russian,
Chinese and French in declining order of magnitude, with the Russians holding
the lion’s share and the Chinese just edging out the French for second place.”
But as Shaw’s office increasingly got involved in ongoing intelligence to
identify Iraqi weapons programs before the war, he also got “a flow of
information from British contacts on the ground at the Syrian border and from
London” via non-U.S. government contacts.
“The intelligence included multiple sitings of truck convoys, convoys going
north to the Syrian border and returning empty,” he said.
Shaw worked closely with Julian Walker, a former British ambassador who had
decades of experience in Iraq, and an unnamed Ukranian-American who was directly
plugged in to the head of Ukraine’s intelligence service.
The Ukrainians were eager to provide the United States with documents from their
own archives on Soviet arms transfers to Iraq and on ongoing Russian assistance
to Saddam, to thank America for its help in securing Ukraine’s independence from
the Soviet Union, Shaw said.
In addition to the convoys heading to Syria, Shaw said his contacts “provided
information about steel drums with painted warnings that had been moved to a
cellar of a hospital in Beirut.”
But when Shaw passed on his information to the Defense Intelligence Agency and
others within the U.S. intelligence community, he was stunned by their response.
“My report on the convoys was brushed off as ‘Israeli disinformation,’” he said.
One month later, Shaw learned that the DIA general counsel complained to his own
superiors that Shaw had eaten from the DIA “rice bowl.” It was a Washington
euphemism that meant he had commited the unpardonable sin of violating another
agency’s turf.
The CIA responded in even more diabolical fashion. “They trashed one of my Brits
and tried to declare him persona non grata to the intelligence community,” Shaw
said. “We got constant indicators that Langley was aggressively trying to
discredit both my Ukranian American and me in Kiev,” in addition to his other
sources.
But Shaw’s information had not originated from a casual contact. His
Ukranian-American aid was a personal friend of David Nicholas, a Western
ambassador in Kiev, and of Igor Smesko, head of Ukrainian intelligence.
Smesko had been a military attaché in Washington in the early 1990s when Ukraine
first became independent and Dick Cheney was secretary of defense. “Smesko had
told Cheney that when Ukraine became free of Russia he wanted to show his
friendship for the United States.”
Helping out on Iraq provided him with that occasion.
“Smesko had gotten to know Gen. James Clapper, now director of the Geospacial
Intelligence Agency, but then head of DIA,” Shaw said.
But it was Shaw’s own friendship to the head of Britain’s MI6 that brought it
all together during a two-day meeting in London that included Smeshko’s people,
the MI6 contingent, and Clapper, who had been deputized by George Tenet to help
work the issue of what happened to Iraq’s WMD stockpiles.
In the end, here is what Shaw learned:
In December 2002, former Russian intelligence chief Yevgeni Primakov, a KGB
general with long-standing ties to Saddam, came to Iraq and stayed until just
before the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003;
Primakov supervised the execution of long-standing secret agreements, signed
between Iraqi intelligence and the Russian GRU (military intelligence), that
provided for clean-up operations to be conducted by Russian and Iraqi military
personnel to remove WMDs, production materials and technical documentation from
Iraq, so the regime could announce that Iraq was “WMD free.”
Shaw said that this type GRU operation, known as “Sarandar,” or “emergency
exit,” has long been familiar to U.S. intelligence officials from Soviet-bloc
defectors as standard GRU practice;
In addition to the truck convoys, which carried Iraqi WMD to Syria and Lebanon
in February and March 2003 “two Russian ships set sail from the (Iraqi) port of
Umm Qasr headed for the Indian Ocean,” where Shaw believes they “deep-sixed”
additional stockpiles of Iraqi WMD from flooded bunkers in southern Iraq that
were later discovered by U.S. military intelligence personnel;
The Russian “clean-up” operation was entrusted to a combination of GRU and
Spetsnaz troops and Russian military and civilian personnel in Iraq “under the
command of two experienced ex-Soviet generals, Colonel-General Vladislav Achatov
and Colonel-General Igor Maltsev, both retired and psing as civilian commercial
consultants.”
Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz reported on Oct. 30, 2004, that Achatov and
Maltsev had been photographed receiving medals from Iraqi Defense Minister
Sultan Hashim Ahmed in a Baghdad building bombed by U.S. cruise missiles during
the first U.S. air raids in early March 2003.
Shaw says he leaked the information about the two Russian generals and the
clean-up operation to Gertz in October 2004 in an effort to “push back” against
claims by Democrats that were orchestrated with CBS News to embarrass President
Bush just one week before the November 2004 presidential election. The press
sprang bogus claims that 377 tons of high explosives of use to Iraq’s nuclear
weapons program had “gone missing” after the U.S.-led liberation of Iraq, while
ignoring intelligence of the Russian-orchestrated evacuation of Iraqi WMDs;
The two Russian generals “had visited Baghdad no fewer than 20 times in the
preceding five to six years,” Shaw revealed. U.S. intelligence knew “the
identity and strength of the various Spetsnaz units, their dates of entry and
exit in Iraq, and the fact that the effort (to clean up Iraq’s WMD stockpiles)
with a planning conference in Baku from which they flew to Baghdad.”
The Baku conference, chaired by Russian Minister of Emergency Situations Sergei
Shoigu, “laid out the plans for the Sarandar clean-up effort so that Shoigu
could leave after the keynote speech for Baghdad to orchestrate the planning for
the disposal of the WMD.”
Subsequent intelligence reports showed that Russian Spetsnaz operatives “were
now changing to civilian clothes from military/GRU garb,” Shaw said. “The
Russian denial of my revelations in late October 2004 included the statement
that “only Russian civilians remained in Baghdad.” That was the “only true
statement” the Russians made, Shaw ironized.
The evacuation of Saddam’s WMD to Syria and Lebanon “was an entirely controlled
Russian GRU operation,” Shaw said. “It was the brainchild of General Yevgenuy
Primakov.”
The goal of the clean-up was “to erase all trace of Russian involvement” in
Saddam’s WMD programs, and “was a masterpiece of military camouflage and
deception.”
Just as astonishing as the Russian clean-up operation were efforts by Bush
administration appointees, including Defense Department spokesman Laurence
DiRita, to smear Shaw and to cover up the intelligence information he brought to
light.
“Larry DiRita made sure that this story would never grow legs,” Shaw said. “He
whispered sotto voce to journalists that there was no substance to my
information and that it was the product of an unbalanced mind.”
Shaw suggested that the answer of why the Bush administration had systematically
“ignored Russia’s involvement” in evacuating Saddam’s WMD stockpiles “could be
much bigger than anyone has thought,” but declined to speculate what exactly was
involved.
Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney was less reticent. He thought the
reason was Iran.
“With Iran moving faster than anyone thought in its nuclear programs,” he told
NewsMax, “the administration needed the Russians, the Chinese and the French,
and was not interested in information that would make them look bad.”
McInerney agreed that there was “clear evidence” that Saddam had WMD. “Jack Shaw
showed when it left Iraq, and how.”
Former Undersecretary of Defense Richard Perle, a strong supporter of the war
against Saddam, blasted the CIA for orchestrating a smear campaign against the
Bush White House and the war in Iraq.
“The CIA has been at war with the Bush administration almost from the
beginning,” he said in a keynote speech at the Intelligence Summit on Saturday.
He singled out recent comments by Paul Pillar, a former top CIA Middle East
analyst, alleging that the Bush White House “cherry-picked” intelligence to make
the case for war in Iraq.
“Mr. Pillar was in a very senior position and was able to make his views known,
if that is indeed what he believed,” Perle said.
“He (Pillar) briefed senior policy officials before the start of the Iraq war in
2003. If he had had reservations about the war, he could have voiced them at
that time.” But according to officials briefed by Pillar, Perle said, he never
did.
Even more inexplicable, Perle said, were the millions of documents “that remain
untranslated” among those seized from Saddam Hussein’s intelligence services.
“I think the intelligence community does not want them to be exploited,” he
said.
Among those documents, presented Saturday at the conference by former FBI
translator Bill Tierney, were transcripts of Saddam’s palace conversations with
top aides in which he discussed ongoing nuclear weapons plans in 2000, well
after the U.N. arms inspectors believed he had ceased all nuclear weapons work.
“What was most disturbing in those tapes,” Tierney said, “was the fact that the
individuals briefing Saddam were totally unknown to the U.N. Special
Commission.”
In addition, Tierney said, the plasma uranium programs Saddam discussed with his
aids as ongoing operations in 2000 had been dismissed as “old programs”
disbanded years earlier, according to the final CIA report on Iraq’s weapons
programs, presented in 2004 by the Iraq Survey Group.
“When I first heard those tapes” about the uranium plasma program, “it
completely floored me,” Tierney said.
Comment by Russ — 2/19/2006 @ 12:29 pm
New questions on Saddam, WMD
Published February 20, 2006
The Washington Times
More information has surfaced in recent days about Saddam Hussein and his
weapons of mass destruction programs, and the possible roles of Syria and
Russia in spiriting WMD and massive arsenals of conventional munitions out
of Iraq prior to the start of the war three years ago.
The new information includes audio recordings of 12 hours of
conversations from the early 1990s through 2000 involving Saddam Hussein
and his top aides, in which Saddam discusses how to conceal Iraqi weapons
programs from U.N. inspectors and the possibility that the United States
could be the target of terrorist attacks. The recordings were provided by
Bill Tierney, an Arabic speaker, who worked during the mid-1990s for the
United Nations Special Commission that was responsible for overseeing
Iraq’s disarmament.
One new piece of information revealed on the tapes, released Saturday
by Mr. Tierney at the Intelligence Summit, a private conference held in
Arlington, is that Saddam was actively working on a plan to enrich uranium
using a technique known as plasma separation. This is particularly
worrisome because of the date of the conversation: It took place in 2000,
nearly five years after Iraq’s nuclear programs were thought to have
stopped.
Perhaps most disturbing of all, according to Mr. Tierney, was the fact
that the Iraqi scientists briefing Saddam about the uranium enrichment
plan in 2000 “were totally unknown” to U.N. weapons inspectors. The plasma
program also appears to have escaped the attention of the Iraq Survey
Group, which reported two years ago that it had ended back in the late
1980s.
Mr. Tierney points out that the 12 hours of information that he has
translated thus far is just a small fraction of the hundreds of hours of
tape recordings and other raw intelligence data collected after the fall
of Saddam.
Another speaker at the conference was John Shaw, former deputy
undersecretary of defense for international technology security, who
charged that Saddam’s stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction were moved
by Russian special forces into Syria and Lebanon. According to Mr. Shaw,
former Russian intelligence boss Yevgeny Primakov came to Iraq in December
2002 in order to supervise “cleanup” operations to remove WMD production
materials from the country. This operation, carried out by GRU military
intelligence and Russian “spetsnaz,” or special forces, troops, was
designed to make it possible for critics of the war to be able to claim
that Iraq had had no WMD. Mr. Shaw claims that officials in the Pentagon
and the CIA, who were fearful of alienating Moscow, actively worked to
discredit his efforts to bring this story to light, and that some derided
it as “Israeli disinformation.”
It is apparent that the American public has much more to learn about
Moscow, Damascus and WMD and precisely when Saddam’s nuclear weapons
programs actually stopped.
Copyright © 2006 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
Comment by Russ — 2/20/2006 @ 12:40 pm
Russ:
Please do not publish any more complete articles from copyrighted sources.
A snippett along with a link would do just fine.
If you persist, I’m afraid I’m going to have to drastically cut what you post.
RM
Comment by Rick Moran — 2/20/2006 @ 1:01 pm
What About The WMD?
This is the beginning of an interview with Bill Tierney (November 2005) entitled “Where the WMDs Went.” Click on the link below to read the entire interview and see what he has to say about WMD.
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Bill …
Trackback by BIG DOG'S WEBLOG — 3/23/2006 @ 6:57 pm
Some of this stuff is grasping at straws and presented in a misleading way.
The UN inspectors satellite photos are from after the war. You know the one, does “Mission Accomplished” ring any bells? They undoubtedly show all the caches being stripped and sent to surrounding countries to be sold as scrap. There were reports at the time of the empty UN sites, which had already been inspected BTW, being stripped and lines of trucks taking the stuff to —-> Jordan. Some of this also probably wound up in Syria.
General Sada being billed as an expert… he had not been in the Iraqi military since 1991. He had retired in 86 but was drafted for Gulf War 1. He was thrown in prison and was released but closely monitored as a possible threat to Saddam and a Christian in a Muslim country. Who would have told him all these secrets? What dissidents or Christians would Saddam let smuggle out WMDs? Who did he associate with? - Read between the lines of the book. Who plugged him into Iraqi politics right after the war? Check out what PR firm is managing his book tour that gets all these media hot tickets. Do the words swindler and liar and Iranian agent Chalabi ring any bells?
You are being neo-conned again into another sweeping big lie to pull the GOP bacon out of the fire in time for another election.
The last big lie cost us a billion dollars and thousands of troops. Quit weakening America.
Comment by Easter Lemming — 3/24/2006 @ 1:19 am
WMD
Even though there are a lot of what ifs and maybes, Power Line brings us some pretty convincing evidence that those”long lost” WMD may be in Syria.
Rick Moran at Right Wing Nut House pretty much comes to the same conclusion. He also supplie…
Trackback by Damascus Road — 3/29/2006 @ 4:08 pm
They say the simplest answer is most likely corrct. I for one believe that one of Sadam’s sons was ultimately in charge of hiding their WMD. It was a very simple thing to dig a large trench with earth moving equipment. Drive the few WMD factory and storage trucks down into the trench, cover them up again. Kill the truck drivers and ultimately only Saddam’s son would know where they were hidden and we know what happened to him. Burying the stuff could have been done in a day. There is a history of Iraq burying everything else of military value including planes, artillery and weapons.
I don’t know why Bush hasn’t just insisted from the beginning tht Sadam buried them and we killed the only people who knew where they were. IT was a perfect cover story that no-one could prove untrue and the only plausible answer that really answers the question of why so many countries and intelligence agencies were sure Saddam had them and where did they go and why no one can find them now.
I think Syria as a place to hide WMD would have been far more complicated. Syria would be able to blckmail Saddam by threatening to expose the proof that the US war was justified. All the reports that WMD went to Syria are just disinformation meant to sidetrack investigations up dead ends.
The simplest answer is most likely the correct one.
Comment by sail4evr — 4/11/2006 @ 6:34 am
Can’t see why Conservatives are so quick to accept an Iraqi General’s argument while they don’t believe the stories of Bush’s own Treasury Secretary about how the Iraq invasion was being discussed well before 9-11 and that after 9-11 the focus shifted immediately to Iraq rather than to the source of real terrorism (although at least the Taliban was also targeted). I’m sorry but I trust an American Treasury Secretary before one of Saddam’s generals! But I do give this website some credit for not jumping to conclusions and presenting some opposting views
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