The Fate of Saddamâs WMDs and the Evidence the Left Ignores We heard it incessantly throughout the 2004 presidential election, and weâve heard it since the Presidentâs victory: âBush lied!â Or, more specifically, that President Bush misled the country in the run-up to the war to topple Saddam by justifying the war based on the threat of Saddamâs weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of al-Qaeda or other allied international terrorist groups. Such a possibility, Bush warned, threatened the security of the United States as well as other nations in this post-9/11 world. But despite former CIA Director George Tenetâs pre-war prediction that finding Saddamâs WMDs would be a âslam dunk,â significant stockpiles of weapons were not found in Iraq. This reality prompted no less an expert on national security and terrorism than actor Sean Penn to spout at the 2004 Academy Awards ceremony, âIt turns out there never were any WMDs in Iraq.â âBush misled the American people about the reasons for going to war in Iraq. â So the refrain goes. In reality it's been the Democrats and their peace-at-any-price fellow-travelers who have misled the American people about our reasons for going to war, both before and after the toppling of Saddam. In President Bush's speech to the United Nation on Sept. 12, 2002, he outlined not one, but five concerns with Saddam which justified his forced removal. President Bush stated that in order to avoid war, Saddam should: Â âimmediately and unconditionally forswear, disclose, and remove or destroy all weapons of mass destruction, long-range missiles, and all related materialâ (note his reference to the means to deliver WMD, and to ârelated materials,â which would include research and development infrastructure; both were discovered by the Iraq Survey Team under the direction of David Kay); Â end all support for terrorism and act to suppress it; Â cease persecution of its civilian population; Â account for all Gulf War personnel whose fate is still unknown, return the remains of deceased, return stolen property, and accept liability for losses resulting from the invasion of Kuwait; Â end all illicit trade outside the oil-for-food program (_http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020912-1.html_ (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020912-1.html) ) Five conditions to avoid war, not one. Itâs the Democrats, the naysayers, the anti-war left, who reduced the debate on Iraq to the single issue of unfound WMDs. This is ironic in that these same naysayers opposed the toppling of Saddam even when the pre-war consensus of the world was that Iraq possessed WMDs. These same naysayers more than likely wouldnât have gone to war against Saddam if his agents had lobbed a nuke over the White House fence â they all would have argued that this was âunderstandableâ because we somehow deserved it. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that in the minds of most Americans the compelling reason to move against Saddam was to prevent his WMDs from falling into the hands of terrorists with international reach. And it has to be admitted that this was the key (if not the only) rationale President Bush gave for the invasion of Iraq. Now, due to the failure to uncover actual weapons in Iraq, fault has been laid at the feet of the US intelligence community for what is deemed as faulty pre-war intelligence. But where did the US get some of the key information about Saddamâs WMD program prior to the decision to invade Iraq? Much of it came from the United Nations. In January of 2003, UN weapons inspectors, operating under the mandate of UN Resolution 1441, found 16 chemical warheads and documents about Iraq's nuclear and missile programs. These discoveries prompted Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, in a speech to the U.S. Institute of Peace on January 21, 2003, to ask, "finding these 16 warheads just raises a basic question: Where are the other 29,984? Because that is how many empty chemical warheads the UN Special Commission estimated [Saddam] had and he has never accounted for...And where are the 550 artillery shells that are filled with mustard gas? And the 400 biological weapons-capable aerial bombs? And the 26,000 liters of anthrax? The botullinum, the VX, the sarin gas that the UN said he has?" By the UN inspectors' own estimates from its weapons inspection activities, Iraq had significant stockpiles of WMDs, or WMD-related material. An UNSCOM report to the UN Security Council in January 1999, based upon the work inspectors had accomplished in Iraq prior to their being expelled by Saddam 1998, stated that the inspection team was unable to account for: Â up to 360 tons of bulk chemical warfare agents, including 1.5 tons of VX nerve agent; Â up to 3,000 tons of precursor chemicals, including approximately 300 tons which, in the Iraqi chemical warfare program, were unique to the production of VX; Â growth media procured for biological agent production (enough to produce over three times the 8,500 litres of anthrax spores Iraq admitted to UN inspectors to having manufactured); Â over 30,000 special munitions for delivery of chemical and biological agents; Â 20 al-Hussein missiles with a range of 650 km, in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 687 (Iraq had told UNSCOM that it filled these warheads with anthrax and botulinum); Â 2,850 tons of mustard gas, 210 tons of tabun, and 795 tons of sarin and cyclosarin; Â development of the Al-Samoud short-range missle (which had the capability to fly beyond the 150 km allowed by UN resolutions) (_http://www.un.org/Depts/unscom/unscmdoc.htm_ (http://www.un.org/Depts/unscom/unscmdoc.htm) ) These WMD-related findings were not based upon âfaulty intelligence,â but upon actual evidence on the ground in Iraq. In the second go-around of weapons inspections under the authority of UN Resolution 1441, Saddam never produced evidence or documents to verify that these weapons systems or components had been destroyed â a failure which in and of itself was a violation of UN resolutions. It was the knowledge that Saddamâs Iraq had these WMD-related materials as late as 1998, and that he had not provided proof of their destruction, which caused concern throughout the world community after 9/11 that these materials could fall into the hands of terrorists. While it is true that the presence of "stockpiles" of WMDs in Iraq prior to the start of the war has not been confirmed, neither has the assertion been confirmed that they never existed. The facts state quite the opposite. While we do not know whether WMDs were in Iraq before the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, we do know the following: Â We know that Saddam had WMDs and used them against both the Iranian army, and the Kurds in his own country; Â we know that pretty much every intelligence agency in the world had concluded that Saddam had WMDs; Â we know the UN had uncovered a WMD program and the existence of actual WMDs, more than what Iraq had willingly admitted to; Â we know that Saddam violated fourteen UN resolutions related to Iraq's disarmament and the inspection of his weapons program; Â we know that Saddam violated the terms of the ceasefire which ended the Gulf War in 1991; these violations essentially continued that conflict until the US-led coalition in "Operation Iraqi Freedom" brought the 12-year old conflict to a final conclusion; Â we know, based upon what David Kay's inspection team discovered up to its interim report in October 2003 that Iraq had the infrastructure, the technical expertise, and the growth media for an aggressive WMD development program; Â we also know from David Kay's report in October of 2003 that Saddam was developing a delivery system of long-range missles which could have been used for WMDs, in violation of UN resolutions; Â we also know that pre-war intelligence is never completely accurate, and can only be confirmed or refuted by on-the-ground information gathering after battle has concluded, and that âempirical reality on the ground is, and has always been, different from intelligence judgments that must be made under serious constraints of time, distance and information.â (David Kay, presentation to the CIA, Oct. 2, 2003; (_http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2003/david_kay_10022003.html_ (http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2003/david_kay_10022003.html) ) So, were there WMDs in Iraq? Are there WMDs still in Iraq? Columnist Charles Krauthammer offered a plausible answer (Oct. 9, 2003, Washington Post): Rolf Ekeus, living proof that not all Swedish arms inspectors are fools, may have been right. Ekeus headed the U.N. inspection team that from 1991 to 1997 uncovered not just tons of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq but a massive secret nuclear weapons program as well. This after the other Swede, Hans Blix, then director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had given Saddam Hussein a perfectly clean bill of health on being non-nuclear. Indeed, Iraq had a seat on the IAEA board of governors. Ekeus theorizes that Hussein decided years ago that it was unwise to store mustard gas and other unstable and corrosive poisons in barrels, and also difficult to conceal them. Therefore, rather than store large stocks of weapons of mass destruction, he would adapt the program to retain an infrastructure (laboratories, equipment, trained scientists, detailed plans) that could âbreak outâ and ramp up production when needed. The model is Japanese âjust in time â manufacturing, where you save on inventory by making and delivering stuff in immediate response to orders. Except that Hussein's business was toxins, not Toyotas. The interim report of chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay seems to support the Ekeus hypothesis. He found infrastructure, but as yet no finished product. As yet, mind you....Hussein's practice was to store his chemical weapons unmarked amid his conventional munitions, and we have just begun to understand the staggering scale of Hussein's stocks of conventional munitions. Hussein left behind 130 known ammunition caches, many of which are more than twice the size of Manhattan. Imagine looking through "600,000 tons of artillery shells, rockets, aviation bombs and other ordnance" â rows and rows stretched over an area the size of even one Manhattan â looking for barrels of unmarked chemical weapons.... (_http://www.townhall.com/columnists/charleskrauthammer/ck20031010.shtm_ (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/charleskrauthammer/ck20031010.shtm) ) Whether actual WMDs will ever be found in Iraq is problematic. (Remember: Saddam buried aircraft in the sand prior to the Gulf War in 1991.) But, again, we know 1) Saddam had such weapons, 2) he used them, 3) he hid the elements of his WMD program from UN inspectors until they were discovered, and 4) even with the absense of WMDs in Iraq, Saddam had the expertise, the resources, the infrastructure, and the will to quickly manufacture WMDs whenever needed. Conclusion: Saddam was a threat to the region, and to this nation. When confronted with the incessant (and false) claim that âBush lied!â the naysayers should be asked, âWell, what do you think happened to Saddamâs WMDs, because he clearly pursued them, and he clearly possessed them?â This is really the key question, and itâs one that our enterprising mainstream news media has not simply failed to ask, but has refused to ask. But despite the failure of the American news media to do its job, intriguing evidence of the existence of Iraqâs WMDs have appeared in other sources since Saddamâs government fell in 2003. Syria Almost as persistent as the exclamations that âBush lied!â have been the rumors and speculations that Saddam cleverly hid what weapons he had within Iraq (and it should be noted that in a nation which seems to have more than its fair share of underground complexes that a significant stockpile of weaponized biological agents can be stored in the size of the average two-car garage), and/or that he covertly transferred them to the care of his fellow-Baathist regime in Syria, or shipped them to other allied governments. While persistent, these rumors have never been proven. There are, however, some interesting indications that the rumors have substance. In his 2004 book, The Secret History of the Iraq War, Middle East expert Yossef Bodansky (former director of the congressional policy office on terrorism; consultant to a number of intelligence think tank organizations; author of numerous books, including what is considered to be the definitive biography on Osama bin Laden in 1999 wherein he predicted what the West is now seeing in regard to international terrorism), includes this startling, and largely ignored, information: On April 5, [2003]...Russian intelligence sources reported...that a group from the Republican Guard and other units of the regular army from the Tikrit area made their way to Syria in a daring operation including three hundred tanks, one hundred GRAD multiple-barrel rocket launchers (MBRLs), many of which had chemical warheads, and many other weapon systems, INCLUDING IRAQ'S ENTIRE WMD ARSENAL. [Emphasis added] Lebanese sources with access to eastern Syria confirmed the arrival of the column. (The Secret History of the Iraq War, Regan Books, 2004, page 231)
Elsewhere in the book (page 438), Bodansky, citing a Syrian opposition journalist named Nizar Nayyouf as his source, outlined precisely where the Iraq WMDs ended up in Syria. The information provided by Nayyouf came from maps and notes he had received from a Syrian senior officer who'd become a dissident. The WMDs may be in these locations to this day. Others sources in a position to know have also concluded that at least some of Saddamâs WMDs made it into Syria. In an exclusive interview with the Daily Telegraph in London, published January 25, 2004, David Kay, who had recently stepped down as head of the Coalitionâs Iraq Survey Group charged with searching for Saddamâs WMDs, claimed that part of Saddamâs weapons program was hidden in Syria. âWeâre not talking about a large stockpile of weapons,â Kay told the Telegraph. âBut we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddamâs WMD program. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved.â In a forceful and convincing refutation of these charges, a Syrian official said on January 24, 2004, âThese allegations have been raised many times in the past by Israeli officials, which proves that they are false.â U.S. Army Intelligence reportedly has not bought into the conclusion that Saddam abandoned his WMD program before the US-led war to topple him in 2003, according to a report in World Tribune.com on September 24, 2004. (http://216.26.163.62/2004/ss_syria_09_24.html) Army Intelligence had concluded that the US failure to find Iraqi WMDs was attributable to Saddamâs transfer of his weapons and hardware to Syria in late 2002 and early 2003 â the precise timeframe when the US was dickering with the United Nations Security Council to gain âauthorityâ to take out Saddamâs regime. The Armyâs assessment that Syria received Iraqi WMD is also shared by the Defense Department, World Tribune reported. US reconnaissance satellites reportedly detected Iraqi convoys of suspected WMD and missile cargos entering Syria in early 2003, making their way to a destination in Lebanonâs Bekaa Valley. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said publicly that âItâs clear that the deposits of weapons of mass destruction have not been found since the end of the major combat operations. Another possibility is they have them to some other country or hid them in some other country.â A similar assessment of the fate of Saddamâs WMDs was voice by US intelligence sources and reported by United Press International on October 29, 2003. The U.S. intelligence assessment was discussed publicly for the first time by the director of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency in a briefing in Washington on Tuesday, October 28. James Clapper, a retired air force general and a leading member of the U.S. intelligence community, said he linked the disappearance of Iraqi WMD with the huge number of Iraqi trucks that entered Syria before and during the U.S. military campaign to topple the Saddam regime. "I think personally that the [Iraqi] senior leadership saw what was coming and I think they went to some extraordinary lengths to dispose of the evidence," Clapper said. "I'll call it an educated hunch." Officials said the intelligence community assessed that the trucks contained missiles and WMD components banned by the United Nations Security Council. Clapper said Iraqi officials feared U.S. discovery of Iraqi biological and chemical weapons, and ordered subordinates to conceal and destroy evidence of WMD in early 2003. He said he was certain that components connected to Iraq's biological, chemical and nuclear programs were sent to Syria in the weeks prior to and during the war, which began on March 19. "I think probably in the few months prior to the onset of combat, there was probably an intensive effort to disperse to private homes, to move documentation and materials out of the country," Clapper said. "But certainly, inferentially, the obvious conclusion one draws is that the certain uptick in traffic [to Syria] may have been people leaving the scene, fleeing Iraq, and unquestionably, I am sure, material." The chief of the NIMA, which was renamed the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) in November 2003, acknowledged that U.S. spy satellites did not identify the cargo transported by the Iraqi trucks into Syria. He said that much of the Iraqi WMD remained in the country and was either concealed or destroyed even as the U.S. military captured Baghdad in April. Clapper said he suspected that the looting throughout Sunni cities in Iraq in April was directed by Saddam loyalists to serve as a diversion for the destruction or transfer of WMD components from government or other installations targeted by U.S. intelligence. The United States has never found biological, chemical or nuclear weapons in Iraq. "So by the time that we got to a lot of these facilities, that we had previously identified as suspect facilities, there wasn't that much there to look at," Clapper said. "Based on the evidence we had at the time, I thought the conclusions we reached about the presence of at least a latent WMD program was accurate and balanced," Clapper said. John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, told the Washington Times in October of 2004 that he had received foreign intelligence information that Russian special forces units were involved in removing Saddam Husseinâs weapons of mass destruction in the weeks before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. (http://washingtontimes.com/national/20041229-113041-1647r.htm) A letter written by Shaw to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that information about the covert Russian role in moving Iraqi arms to Syria, Lebanon and possibly Iran was discussed during a meeting that included NGIA head James Clapper, the head of Britainâs MI6 intelligence service, and the head of a foreign intelligence service that he did not name. After Shawâs disclosures, the Pentagon released spy satellite photographs of Iraqi weapons facilities that showed truck convoys at the plants, apparently in preparation to transport materials. For his troubles, Shaw was asked to resign from his DoD position in December 2004, due to his âexceeding his authorityâ in releasing the story to the media of Russian troop involvement in removing Saddamâs WMDs. Nearly six months before the press briefing by Gen. Clapper, Debkafile reported on May 5, 2003 (_http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=482_ (http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=482) ) that âthe relocation of Iraqâs WMD systems took place between January 10 [2002] and March 10 [2003] and was completed just 10 days before the US-led offensive was launched against Iraq. The banned arsenal, hauled in giant tankers from Iraq to Syria and from there to the Bekaa Valley under Syrian special forces and military intelligence escort, was discharged into pits 6-8 meters across and 25-35 meters deep dug by Syrian army engineersâ.[T]heir location is known and detectable with the right instruments. Our sources have learned that Syria was paid about $35 million to make Saddam Husseinâs forbidden weapons disappearâ The United States is therefore fully apprised of the whereabouts of Saddam Husseinâs arsenal of unconventional weapons and has taken custody of the scientists who developed them. In an apparent effort to cover their tracks, agents of the former Saddam regime have sought to kill Iraqi scientists who have knowledge of Saddamâs WMD programs. One such successful hit was the assassination of Iraqi nuclear scientist Mohammed Toki Hussein al Talakani on September 4, 2004, in the Sunni city of Mahmudiya. Since Saddamâs fall, the US government has applied increasing pressure on Syria to take affirmation steps to cooperate with the Coalitionâs objectives in Iraq. The public announcements have had to do with such things as Syria policing its border with Iraq to prevent the influx of terrorists into Iraq, and the turning over of members of Saddamâs regime who are suspected to have fled into Syria during the war. Below the radar there may be an effort to get Syriaâs leader, Bashar Assad, to come clean on Saddamâs hidden WMDs. No one in the mainstream news media has pursued this story. But then, itâs the mainstream media which have largely functioned as cheerleaders in the âBush lied!â campaign. Evidence that Saddam frantically scrapped WMD hardware Revelations that Saddam moved some of his WMDs and hardware out of the country were further confirmed by Demetrius Perricos, acting chairman of UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), who disclosed that his inspectors had been tracking shipments of illicit Iraqi WMD components around the world. The Associated Press announced that UNMOVIC inspectors have found dozens of engines from banned al-Samoud 2 (SA2) missiles, which were shipped out of Iraq as "scrap metal." UNMOVIC agents found 20 SA-2 engines in Jordan, along with a great deal of other WMD materials. Officials discovered an identical engine in a Rotterdam port in the Netherlands and believe as many as a dozen extra SA-2 missile engines alone have been transported out of Iraq and remain unaccounted for... Besides the SA-2 engines, inspectors also found Iraqi "dual use" technology in Jordan, items purportedly employed in civilian affairs that can be used to create or enhance deadly weapons systems. The New York Times noted that among those items were "fermenters, a freeze drier, distillation columns, parts of missiles and a reactor vessel - all tools suitable for making biological or chemical weapons." UN spokesman Ewen Buchanan put the threat of "dual use" technology into perspective. "You can make all kinds of pharmaceutical and medicinal products with a fermenter," Buchanan said. "You can also use it to breed anthrax." Before the war, Saddam's regime cast its possession of "dual use" materials in the most innocent light, a ruse familiar to students of the Cold War. UNMOVIC wisely rejected his sunny assessment. As Reuter's reported...ââA number of sites which contained dual-use equipment that was previously monitored by UN inspectors has [sic.] been systematically taken apart,â said Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the New York-based inspectors. âThe question this raises is what happened to equipment known to have been there. Where is it now? It's a concern,â Buchanan asked.â â...The report said the U.N. inspectors also found papers showing illegal contracts by Iraq for a missile guidance system, laser ring gyroscopes and a variety of production and testing equipment not previously disclosed.â Many of the âdual useâ components UNMOVIC found in foreign ports had been previous tagged by UN inspectors in Iraq before the war. And transfers had taking place rapidly. During his presentation, Perricos showed the UN Security Council a picture of a fully developed missile site in May 2002 that had been entirely torn down by February of 2003. Perricos' June 9, 2004, UN testimony was made all the more credible by the fact that he is hardly a neo-con stalwart. USA Today described his mindset just three months ago: "Demetrius Perricos, acting head of the United Nations weapons inspection program, can't disguise his satisfaction that almost a year after the invasion of Iraq, U.S. inspectors have found the same thing that their much-maligned UN counterparts did before the war: no banned weapons." Today, Perricos' smile has disappeared. All these revelations came during a closed meeting of the UN Security Council held on June 9, 2004. However, the investigations are not new. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) launched its own probe into Iraqi WMD transfers a full six months previous to the UNMOVIC report when a Dutch scrap metal company discovered [five pounds of yellowcake uranium ore] in Rotterdam. The sample was shipped from Jordan but Jordanian officials said the metal originated in Iraq. (Perhaps this is the yellowcake that atomic sleuth Joe Wilson insisted Iraq never purchased from Niger...the purchase of which had subsequently been re-confirmed by the London Financial Times). Even the once skeptical IAEA Director Mohammed El Baradei warned that evidence of Saddam's WMDs was being shipped abroad. Hard evidence Saddamâs WMDs were removed from Iraq: the CW plot against Jordan On April 13, 2004, Jordanian security forces foiled an al-Qaeda plot against the nationâs intelligence agency. The plot, reported on April 26 by Agence France-Presse (AFP), involved a plan to use trucks packed with 20 tons of chemical explosives, including blistering agents, nerve gas and choking agents. Jordanian officials estimated that had the attack been successful, the amount of chemicals involved had the potential of killing up to 80,000 people. Six members of the terror network which planned to execute the plot were arrested and four others were killed in a series of raids in Jordan which concluded on April 20. The ringleader of the terror network was a Jordanian, Azmi al-Jayussi. Jayussi had been recruited for the operation in Iraq by al-Qaeda leader Abu Massab al-Zarqawi. Zarqawi was identified by Jordanian officials as the mastermind of chemical weapons plot. According to a Jordanian security official interviewed by AFP, âJayussi started to plan for the operation in Iraq where he had moved to from Afghanistan. He received direct orders from his leader, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, to whom Jayussi had pledged allegiance and absolute obedience since he met him in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.â In a taped statement, Jayussi related how his first encounter with Zarqawi had been in Herat, Afghanistan, and how he later connected up with him again in Saddamâs Iraq. He stated that it was Zarqawi who had trained him in the use of âexplosives and strong poisons.â Excerpts of Jayussiâs taped statement, which were aired on ABCâs âNightlineâ on April 26, 2004, revealed that the planning and training for the WMD plot took place in Iraq more than a year before the US-led coalition invasion. In Iraq, Zarqawi introduced Jayussi to another of his Jordanian followers, Muwafaq Adwan. Muwafaq was killed was killed in a shootout with Jordanian police in Amman on April 20. Jayussi told Jordanian security officials that Zarqawi had ordered Muwafaq and him to Jordan where â[o]ur mission was to instigate military workâ in the country. In Jordan, Jayussi was aided by several Syrians under Zarqawiâs direction. The aim of their operation was to attack Jordan and its ruling family as part of a âwar against crusaders and infidels.â Anti-terror experts said that the networkâs 20 tons of explosives would have caused âtwo explosions: a traditional one and a chemical in an area of two square kilometers.â âThe chemical explosion would lead to the emission of poisonous chemical gasses which would have caused physical deformities and direct injuries to the lungs and eyesight,â said one of the experts on a Jordanian news program. â Outside this circle, the human loss would amount to around 80,000 people dead and 160,000 injured.â To fund the operation, Jayussi said that he received the equivalent of $170,000 (US) in installments from Zarqawi, sent through messengers, most of them from Syria. Another arrested suspect, Ahmed Samir, told Jordanian security that he had been trained in Iraq by a Zarqawi aide and worked on explosives for two months in a factory in Ramtha, near the Jordanian-Syrian border. News of this foiled plot should have provided conclusive proof that what President Bush feared, and which justified the effort to take Saddam down, was real â that Saddam allowed the operation of terrorist groups, especially al-Qaeda, within Iraq, and that terrorists trained in Iraq and supplied with a significant quality of WMD materials from Iraq, could have international reach. News of this foiled terrorist plot to use WMDs in a spectacular attack in Jordan received scant attention in the US media. While ABCâs âNightlineâ carried the story, and similar stories appeared in articles published in the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal, the American news media did not give this news the significant level of attention it deserved. The news mediaâ s mantra is that the failure to find stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq is a scandal that rests on the head of George W. Bush. âBush lied!â The real scandal here is the failure or refusal of the American news media to report and pursue events which give credence and justification to President Bushâs policies in Iraq. The smoking gun that was never made public Other evidence exists that Saddamâs connections with terrorist organizations, and his willingness to supply them with materials of mass destruction, posed a real threat to nations well outside the borders of Iraq. In The Secret History of the Iraq War, Yossef Bodanky reveals a link between Saddam, his weapons program, and al-Qaeda (pp. 51-53); the report of this particular incident is quoted verbatim: On January 14, 2003, British police and security forces raided a terrorist safe house in Manchester, ending a several-month-long investigation. A Scotland Yard detective was killed in this raid, which recovered a quantity of ricin â an extremely potent poison. The investigation, begun in the fall 2002 in Israel, involved at its peak the intelligence services of more than six countries. The investigatorsâ findings provided the âsmoking gunâ supporting the administrationâs insistence on Iraqâs centrality to global terrorism, the availability of operational weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and proof of the close cooperation between Iraqi military intelligence and al-Qaeda. The data accumulated during this investigation could have provided the casus belli â the justification for war â and urgent imperative to take on Saddam Hussein. Yet in the first of several indecisive and self-contradicting political maneuvers, the Bush administration preferred to accommodate Blairâs pressure to keep Israel at armâs length, not implicate Arafat, and placate Blairâ s fellow West European leaders rather than go public with the findings of the investigation. Despite mounting international criticism and skepticism in the media, the American public was not presented with one of the strongest and most explicit justifications for the war with Iraq. On the night of September 13, 2003, Israeli Special Forces intercepted and captured a three-man squad attempting to cross the Jordan River and enter the Palestinian territories on their way to Arafatâs compound in Ramallah. The interrogation revealed that they were highly trained members of the Baghdad-based Arab Liberation Front (ALF), sent to conduct spectacular strikes under the banner of Arafatâs Fatah. Specifically, they were dispatched by ALF Chief Muhammad Zaida Abbas, better known as Abu-al-Abbas, to operate directly under the control of Tawfiq Tirawi, chief of the Palestinian Authorityâs General Intelligence Service and Arafatâs closest confidant. Abbas and Tirawi were extremely close childhood friends, having grown up together in a village just north of Ramallah and ultimately joining Arafatâs fledgling terrorist organization together in the early 1960s. The three ALF terrorists were trained for several missions, including an operation that involved using shoulder-fired missiles to shoot down civilian airliners as they approached Ben-Gurion Airport and using anti-tank rockets and missiles to ambush convoys â including American groupings on their way to Iraq. They were also there to organize and train Palestinian terrorists â all trusted operatives of Tirawiâs â to assist with operations and intelligence collection inside Israel. The three had been briefed in Baghdad that they would get the missiles, heavy weapons, and explosives they might need from Fatah via Tirawi. The Israeli interrogators were most interested in what the three had to say about their training: During the summer, they had been trained along with other squads of ALF terrorists at Salman Pak â a major base near Baghdad â by members of Unit 999 of Iraqi military intelligence. They recounted that in an adjacent part of the camp, other teams of Unit 999 were preparing a select group of Islamist terrorists specifically identified as members of al-Qaeda. Although the training was separate, and individuals used code names exclusively, they were able to learn a great deal about the missions of their Islamist colleagues. The three ALF terrorists told the Israelis that in addition to the myriad special operations techniques taught at Salman Pak, the Islamists also received elaborate training in chemical weapons and poisons, specifically ricin. Moreover, on their way to their operational deployment zones, the Islamists were taken to a derelict complex of houses near Halabja, in Kurdistan, where they conducted experiments with chemical weapons and poisons. The area where the training took place was nominally under the control of Ansar-al-Islam, Osama bin Ladenâs Kurdish offshoot. From there, the ALF terrorists recounted, Islamist detachments traveled to Turkey, where they were to strike American bases with chemical weapons once the war [with Iraq] started, and to Pakinsy Gore in northern Georgia (on the border with Chechnya) in order to assist Chechen terrorists as they launched major terrorists operations against Russia. Others were dispatched to train Islamist teams arriving from Western Europe via Turkey in sophisticated terrorism techniques, including the use of chemical weapons and ricin. Within a week of the capture of the ALF trio, a delegation of senior Israeli military intelligence officers traveled to Washington to brief the White House about their findings. By then, there had already been independent corroborations of the Israeli reports: Turkish security forces, acting on tips provided by Israel, arrested two al-Qaeda operatives studying plans to attack the U.S. air base in Incerlick with chemical weapons, and American intelligence also learned from its own sources about the activities of foreign mujahedein in Georgiaâs Pakinsky Gore. Then, on October 23, a group of Chechen and Arab terrorists captured a Moscow theater in the middle of a performance, taking over seven hundred people hostage, rigging the theater with bombs, and threatening to kill everyone in the building. When negotiations failed and the terrorists shot at least one hostage to demonstrate their determination, Russian antiterrorist forces broke into the theater after using a special knockout gas to neutralize the Chechens before they were able to detonate their bombs. The Russian operation was considered a great success, as all the terrorists were killed before they could blow themselves up; however, close to two hundred hostages died from secondary effects caused by the gas, including heart attacks and choking on their own vomit. In any case, the mere occurrence of a spectacular strike in Moscow meant that there could no longer be any doubt about the accuracy of the material provided by the three Palestinians in Israelâs custody. Still, the White House was reluctant to advertise this evidence because it demonstrated Israeli intelligenceâs major contribution to the war on terrorismâ [W]hen ricin was discovered in Manchester and all the dots connected, the intelligence Israel had extracted from the terrorists in its custody was proved wholly accurate. Israel had in fact demonstrated to the Europeans why Saddam Hussein has to be toppled, and soonâ Bodanskyâs book reveals other instances of cooperation between Saddam Hussein âs government and international terrorist groups, and reports of Iraqâs active WMD program. Yossef Bodansky is currently the Director of Research of the International Strategic Studies Association (ISSA), a think tank focusing on national and international security and strategic policy, based in the Washington DC area. In July 2004, I corresponded with ISSA President Gregory Copley to ask about the revelations in Bodanskyâs book, and to ask why, if the information about Saddam moving his WMDs was accurate, the Bush White House hadnât come forward to confirm these reports and thereby put an end to the âBush lied!â myth. Mr. Copley responded: On the WMD [issue], we worked over the past decade on tracking the inflow of [Iraqi] ballistic missile research and chemical, bio and nuclear weapons research moved into Libya, along with some 20,000 Iraqi scientists, engineers and workers. There were also Egyptians involved. We went further in this than [Bodansky] did, largely because it seemed, I suppose, periperhal to [his] publishers who wanted to focus on IraqâSo, too, did the Administration. [Senior Administration officials] wanted no focus whatsoever outside the borders of Iraq. This was, in fact, naive in that Saddam knew that the UN "search warrant" was for Iraq itself; as a result, he moved, as he had done in the past, his sensitive materiel to Syria, Sudan and Libya. The big Libya move of [material] and people was in the 1996-98 timeframe. Qadhafi's admission of "Libya's WMD programs" deliberately did not acknowledge the Iraq link, because of Qadhafi's fear of a US assault. (This information is confirmed and elaborated on in the ISSA report, âIraqi WMD Debate and Intelligence Failed to View Total Picture,â January 30, 2004, filed under the special reports topic âThe Iraq War,â at _http://www.strategicstudies.org_ (http://www.strategicstudies.org/) ) While Bodansky is careful to protect his sources â which protects the lives and welfare of his contacts, but which makes it difficult to confirm much of what he presents in his book â The Secret History of the Iraq War contains enough detail about Saddamâs WMD program, his coordination with al Qaeda, and his actions to cover-up both, that an enterprising American journalist with a major news outlet could pick up the threads and pursue the story. The fact that no major American news entity has done so means either that there are no enterprising journalists with major news outlets in America, or (which is more likely) the mainstream media in the U.S. is so wedded to the âBush lied!â myth that their bias prevents them from pursuing these stories and uncovering the truth. Ignored Iraq Survey Group findings When former Iraq Survey Group (ISG) director, David Kay, provided an update on the Groupâs findings relative to uncovering Saddamâs WMD program to Congress in January of 2004, the major news media focused on only one comment by Kay â his personal conviction that no stockpiles of WMDs existed in Iraq just prior to the Coalition offensive to topple Saddam. Kayâs comment has been so central to the âBush lied!â campaign within the mainstream media, that numerous news agencies included it within their listing of top quotes for the year 2004 (e.g., _http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6732194/site/newsweek/_ (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6732194/site/newsweek/) ). Generally ignored by the news media have been other findings of the ISG, such as the discovery of âa clandestine network of laboratories and safe houses with equipment that was suitable to continuing [Iraqâs] prohibited chemical- and biological-weapons [BW] programs.â Among the specific findings of the ISG, under both Kay and his successor, Charles Duelfer, which have largely been ignored by the American news media: ** Equipment for "uranium-enrichment centrifuges" whose only plausible use was as part of a clandestine nuclear-weapons program. In all these cases, "Iraqi scientists had been told before the war not to declare their activities to the U.N. inspectors," ** A prison laboratory complex that may have been used for human testing of BW agents and "that Iraqi officials working to prepare the U.N. inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the U.N." (Why was Saddam interested in testing biological-warfare agents on humans if he didn't have a biological-weapons program?) ** "Reference strains" of a wide variety of biological-weapons agents were found beneath the sink in the home of a prominent Iraqi BW scientist. "We thought it was a big deal," a senior administration official said. "But it has been written off [by the press] as a sort of 'starter set.'" ** New (emphasize, new) research on BW-applicable agents, brucella and Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever, and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin that were not declared to the United Nations. ** A line of unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, or drones, "not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 kilometers [311 miles], 350 kilometers [217 miles] beyond the permissible limit." ** "Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited Scud-variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the U.N." ** "Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1,000 kilometers [621 miles] -- well beyond the 150-kilometer-range limit [93 miles] imposed by the U.N. Missiles of a 1,000-kilometer range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets throughout the Middle East, including Ankara [Turkey], Cairo [Egypt] and Abu Dhabi [United Arab Emirates]." In addition, through interviews with Iraqi scientists, seized documents and other evidence, the ISG learned the Iraqi government had made "clandestine attempts between late 1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300-kilometer-range [807 miles] ballistic missiles â probably the No Dong â 300-kilometer-range [186 miles] anti-ship cruise missiles and other prohibited military equipment." In testimony before Congress on March 30, 2004, Charles Duelfer revealed the ISG had found evidence of a "crash program" to construct new plants capable of making chemical...and biological/warfare agents. The ISG also found a previously undeclared program to build a "high-speed rail gun," a device apparently designed for testing nuclear-weapons materials. That came in addition to 500 tons of natural uranium stockpiled at Iraq's main declared nuclear site south of Baghdad, which International Atomic Energy Agency spokesman Mark Gwozdecky acknowledged to Insight Magazine had been intended for "a clandestine nuclear-weapons program." Also largely ignored by the media was Kay's statement relating to exactly were some of these WMDs may have gone. David Kay confirmed that part of Saddam's weapons were hidden in Syria: "We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons, but we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD program." WMD shows up as roadside bomb On May 16, 2004, the Associated Press (among other news agencies) reported the discovery of a roadside bomb containing sarin nerve agent which exploded near a US military convoy. While no serious injuries were reported, two people were treated for âminor exposureâ to the gas. The AP reported US Brig. General Mark Kimmittâs comments: âThe Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155-millimeter artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found. The round has been rigged as an IED (improvised explosive device) which was discovered by a US force convoy. A detonation occurred before the IED could be rendered inoperable. This produced a very small dispersal of agent.â If Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction in Iraq prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom, where did the terrorists obtain a sarin-filled artillery piece? And how many more are there where that one came from? The UN passed-off the incident as non-significant, since the artillery piece had apparently been part of an older stockpile of weapons, produced prior to 1991. Only the UN would make a distinction based upon date of production. Were the US and its Coalition allies justified in ridding Iraq of Saddam only as a means of keeping post-1991 WMDs out of the hands of terrorists? A sarin bomb is a sarin bomb, and just as deadly, and just as threatening in the hands of terrorist whether it was produced in 1990, or 2003. The point is, just as the opponents of the war effort in Iraq were turning up the volume of their mantra that Saddam didnât have WMDs, one blew up near a US convoy...... * * Rev. Jim Sutter Cleveland, Ohio USA _Rev. Jim's Place_ (http://hometown.aol.com/revjimsutter/revjim.html) [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> DonorsChoose. A simple way to provide underprivileged children resources often lacking in public schools. 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