Craig Read Posted September 28, 2003 Report Share Posted September 28, 2003 Good points guys. WMD was one factor in the war and only one. The elements of terror are supported by nation states. You don't bomb the WTO using a loose federation of Islamic extremists - you need to train, find money, and plan and you need information. Iraqi's helped Al Qaeda with money, passports, information and planning and training sites. WMD I believe will be found in Iraq. 100 Tonnes can be hidden in 10 large holes of about 10x10x15 in size. A large field could hide such a cache. It will take some time to find WMD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nuclear Posted September 28, 2003 Report Share Posted September 28, 2003 Patience is a virtue. The UN couldn't find their own rear with both hands in five months, now the US is in there and doesn't have to deal with WMD moving around everywhere, they just gotta deal with terrorism.(which the Un said wasn't in Iraq, but now somehow is; I thought Mecca was where the pilgrimed to) Just wait....all those who attack Bush on this are gonna be kissing some major rear end when this is over.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrustyKidd Posted September 28, 2003 Report Share Posted September 28, 2003 Where are the WMD the left asks Bush. Why don't they ask their own guys, even that rat Chirac knew they were there; "This December will mark three years since United Nations inspectors last visited Iraq. There is no doubt that since that time, Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to refine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer- range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies." -- From a December 6, 2001 letter signed by Bob Graham, Joe Lieberman, Harold Ford, & Tom Lantos among others "Saddam's goal ... is to achieve the lifting of U.N. sanctions while retaining and enhancing Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. We cannot, we must not and we will not let him succeed." -- Madeline Albright, 1998 "What is at stake is how to answer the potential threat Iraq represents with the risk of proliferation of WMD. Baghdad's regime did use such weapons in the past. Today, a number of evidences may lead to think that, over the past four years, in the absence of international inspectors, this country has continued armament programs." -- Jacques Chirac, October 16, 2002 "The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow." -- Bill Clinton in 1998 "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security." -- Hillary Clinton, October 10, 2002 "I am absolutely convinced that there are weapons...I saw evidence back in 1998 when we would see the inspectors being barred from gaining entry into a warehouse for three hours with trucks rolling up and then moving those trucks out." -- Clinton's Secretary of Defense William Cohen in April of 2003 "Iraq is not the only nation in the world to possess weapons of mass destruction, but it is the only nation with a leader who has used them against his own people." -- Tom Daschle in 1998 "Saddam Hussein's regime represents a grave threat to America and our allies, including our vital ally, Israel. For more than two decades, Saddam Hussein has sought weapons of mass destruction through every available means. We know that he has chemical and biological weapons. He has already used them against his neighbors and his own people, and is trying to build more. We know that he is doing everything he can to build nuclear weapons, and we know that each day he gets closer to achieving that goal." -- John Edwards, Oct 10, 2002 "I share the administration's goals in dealing with Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction." -- Dick Gephardt in September of 2002 "Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." -- Al Gore, 2002 "We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction." -- Bob Graham, December 2002 "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." -- Ted Kennedy, September 27, 2002 "I will be voting to give the president of the United States the authority to use force - if necessary - to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." -- John F. Kerry, Oct 2002 "We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandates of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them." -- Carl Levin, Sept 19, 2002 "Over the years, Iraq has worked to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. During 1991 - 1994, despite Iraq's denials, U.N. inspectors discovered and dismantled a large network of nuclear facilities that Iraq was using to develop nuclear weapons. Various reports indicate that Iraq is still actively pursuing nuclear weapons capability. There is no reason to think otherwise. Beyond nuclear weapons, Iraq has actively pursued biological and chemical weapons.U.N. inspectors have said that Iraq's claims about biological weapons is neither credible nor verifiable. In 1986, Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran, and later, against its own Kurdish population. While weapons inspections have been successful in the past, there have been no inspections since the end of 1998. There can be no doubt that Iraq has continued to pursue its goal of obtaining weapons of mass destruction." -- Patty Murray, October 9, 2002 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Read Posted September 28, 2003 Report Share Posted September 28, 2003 KK, direct hit !! Awesome post. I am sure the snivelling Liberals will disavow their own 'idols' speeched. Bullseye. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Read Posted September 28, 2003 Report Share Posted September 28, 2003 KK, direct hit !! Awesome post. I am sure the snivelling Liberals will disavow their own demagogues speeches. Bullseye. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrustyKidd Posted September 28, 2003 Report Share Posted September 28, 2003 If you liked that Craig then you'll love this. http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/k-goodnews/browse raq bishop says media distorts coverage to discredit US-led war Catholic News ^ | Sept. 24, 2003 Iraq bishop says media distorts coverage to discredit US-led war An Iraqi Catholic bishop has accused Western media of lying about the postwar state of his country. Auxiliary Bishop Andraos Abouna of Baghdad said he believed media were running a propaganda campaign to discredit the American-led coalition that ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and now runs Iraq. Bishop Abouna, a Chaldean Catholic, told the Catholic Herald in London that the situation in Iraq is steadily improving rather than descending into a morass resembling the Vietnam War, as often depicted by media outlets. "It's getting better but still there are many... U.S. Troops Find Missiles Near Saddam's Hometown Reuters ^ | 9/27/03 | NA TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. troops said they had found surface-to-air missiles and hundreds of other weapons including plastic explosives buried in an orchard near Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s hometown on Saturday. A U.S. military spokesman described the haul as one of the most significant weapons seizures of recent weeks and a sign of how Saddam loyalists were still equipped to pose a threat to U.S. forces. He said 23 SA-7 surface-to-air missiles were found as well as 1,000 pounds of plastic explosives, 500 hand grenades, dozens of mortar bombs and hundreds of detonators which could be used... Young Afghans return to lead the renaissance of the land their parents fled The Sunday Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 09/28/03 | Hamida Ghafour Rahim Walizada typifies the new Afghan Renaissance. He drives around Kabul in a bright blue 1959 Volga with an Afghan hound named James Bond and aims to revitalise the arts scene with the opening of his designer carpet gallery, Nomad. Mr Walizada, who owns the Chukpalu rug gallery on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, admits that his friends were less than impressed with his decision to leave New York for a more earthy experience in Kabul. "Everyone laughed at me," confessed Mr Walizada, who arrived in Kabul a year ago. "They asked, 'Who is going to buy designer rugs in Kabul?'... U.S. Troops Find Weapons Cache in Iraq AP VIA YAHOO ^ | 9/27/03 | PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press Writer TIKRIT, Iraq - U.S. troops uncovered one of their biggest weapons caches to date Saturday at a farm near Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s birthplace, including anti-aircraft missiles and a huge quantity of explosives used to make the homemade bombs that have killed numerous American soldiers. In the second raid in as many days on a farm near the village of Uja, where Saddam was born and the site of a recent bomb attack against American soldiers, U.S. troops acting on a tip dug through the soft earth near a river bank and found the cache underneath a covering... New Year Brings New World To Iraqi Schools San Francisco Chronicle ^ | September 27, 2003 | Vivienne Walt Baghdad -- With Saddam Hussein gone and Iraq's economy in shambles, few changes since the war's end are likely to be as startling as those awaiting the nation's students when they return to class Wednesday to begin their first academic year without the dictator. For Nidal Haj Majid, 42, a high school economics teacher in Babylon, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, a 20-year teaching career was one of predictable routine. "We were ordered by the Education Ministry to collect money from all students each day," she recalled. "When the kids arrived at 8 o'clock, they would give us money... Marine General Thanks Sailors for Support Navy NewsStand ^ | Sept. 26, 2003 | Journalist Seaman Sean Spratt The Source for Navy News 030924-N-9109V-001 Portsmouth, Va. (Sept. 24, 2003) -- Brig. Gen. Richard F. Natonski (right), Commanding General of the Second Marine Expeditionary Brigade, presents an AK-47 rifle to Capt. Chris Hase, the Commanding Officer of USS Saipan (LHA 2), in appreciation for the support the crew gave Marines during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The rifle was confiscated from an Iraqi enemy prisoner of war during the bloodiest day of battle in March of 2003. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate Airman Kyle Voight. (RELEASED) View Larger Download HiRes Marine General Thanks Sailors for SupportStory... Old books to find new life in Iraqi schools northfulton.com ^ | 9/15/2003 | BY CANDY WAYLOCK Fulton County donates over 50,000 surplus books BY CANDY WAYLOCK In the early morning hours of Sept. 10, five tractor-trailers loaded with more than 54,0000 surplus Fulton County School System textbooks pulled out of the school system`s College Park Warehouse and headed for the Savannah port. Once there, the books were shipped to Iraq to assist in that country`s efforts to rebuild its shattered education system. The 101st Airborne Division, on assignment in Northern Iraq, will receive the books and distribute them to local schools. While many school buildings are in good physical shape, there are no instruction materials to... US army turns over border control to Iraqis breakingnews.iol.ie ^ | 9-27-03 | Unknow US army turns over border control to Iraqis 27/09/2003 - 10:59:36 The US Army turned over a large stretch of the border separating Iraq from Iran to an American-trained border police force today, for the first time relinquishing control of a sensitive frontier area to the provisional government. The 210-mile length of frontier running from the edges of Kurdish-controlled territory in the north to a point just southeast of Baghdad is part of a broader effort to give Iraqis more control over their affairs and relieve the US military of the burden of guarding the border. “They are now controlling... Saudi Ambassador: U.S. Winning Struggle In Iraq Birmingham News ^ | 09/27/03 | Tom Gordon The American effort to stabilize and rebuild Iraq seems plagued with bombings, shootings of soldiers and other mishaps, but Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S. says those episodes are only part of an otherwise positive story. "I believe you are way ahead today than you were in the same period of time in (post World War II) Germany and Japan," Prince Bandar bin Sultan said in a Friday interview. "I believe that although it's always sad to lose any life, the casualty rate you're taking ... it will be way lower (than expected) compared to the size of the force... Iraq Economic Situation Said Stabilized AP | 9/26/03 | MARTIN CRUTSINGER WASHINGTON (AP) - Peter McPherson, the man who headed the U.S. economic reform effort in Iraq, said Friday that he believed the economic situation in Iraq has now stabilized but he conceded that it will be some time before the country can resume significant levels of economic growth. McPherson, who will return next week to his job as president of Michigan State University, said he had been able to achieve a number of goals during the period he was in Baghdad overseeing economic reconstruction efforts. McPherson said the 20-person U.S. economic team had been able to put policies in... (Proposal) Spreading the truth about Iraq Self ^ | 9/27/2003 | Eala And from the Washington State message board yesterday: American Sovereignty Defender 09/26/2003 6:36 AM PDT Here is a web link for an article I posted yesterday, "A Message to War Protester from a Marine": http://www.freerepublic.com Based on feedback, it seems folks appreciate that refreshing perspective on the war from a Marine. Eala 09/26/2003 8:00 AM PDT American Sovereignty Defender et al, it's worse than a shame that this should be a "refreshing perspective." I've seen and heard a *very* few (two or three) letters from GIs in Iraq, letters that convey a radically different picture than what we get... Hollywood Megastar Fires Up 101st Soldiers [bruce Willis in Mosul] DoD - ^ | Sept. 26, 2003 | Pfc. Thomas Day Megastar Bruce Willis arrives in Mosul, Iraq to entertain coalition forces. U.S.Army photo. Hollywood MegastarFires Up 101st Soldiers By Pfc. Thomas Day / 40th Public Affairs Detachment MOSUL, Iraq, Sept. 26, 2003 — Silver screen star Bruce Willis and his blues band visited the soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) in Northern Iraq Sept. 25. The 101st stop was just one in a number of goodwill visits on the “Bruce Willis and the Accelerators Touch of Home Tour” this week. “I didn’t see enough people coming out here and supporting the troops,” said Willis, who was... GOTTA SEE THIS-WarEndur.Freedom9/26/03-Baghdad,Bamiyan,Kabul,Mosul Yahoo, AP, Reuters, and the usual suspects and many brave photographers | 9/26/03 | The Armies of Good against the Axis of Evil GOTTA SEE THIS - War for Enduring Freedom 09/26/03 -Baghdad, Bamiyan, Kabul, Mosul BREAKING: Baghdad - minor explosion outside al-Aike Hotel BREAKING: Bamiyan - New Zealand heroes take over BREAKING: Kabul - FREED Afghanis everywhere BREAKING: Mosul - 101st Airborne division trains Iraqis QFN -- QUAGMIRE FREE NEWS ========= Baghdad, IRAQ ========= North of Baghdad, Iraq, on the trail of Bruce Willis, at his concert in Taal Afar airfield for Heroes of the 101st Airborne Division In Baghdad, at the al-Aike Hotel, a bomb exploded outside the hotel, killing a Somali guard and injuring a Canadian sound engineer working with... American football is pitched to Iraqi orphans Reuters | 9/27/03 | Ian Simpson BAGHDAD, Sept 27 (Reuters) - U.S. soldiers sought to put "offense" and "defense" to good use in Iraq on Saturday when they introduced Iraqi orphans to the game of American football. Colonel Ted Cox, a 55-year-old reserve officer who helped organise the event, said it was part of a U.S. effort to win elusive popular support after the war. "These are our future leaders and we want to show that the United States is their strong ally," said Cox, a senior adviser to Iraq's Justice Ministry and a Vietnam War veteran from Shreveport in Louisiana. "Basically, we want to... What The Soldier In Iraq Didn't Say ( Media Distortion) indystar.com | 09/27/2003 | Varvel MSNBC - joe scarbourgh Posted by rushfreedom On 09/26/2003 7:17 PM PDT with 53 comments Turn on MSNBC - Joe is interviewing Bob Arnot to talk about the good news not being reported. Democratic Congressman Says Balance Lacking In Media Coverage Of Iraq Fox News Channel | Myself Congressman Jim Marshall (D-Ga) who just returned from Iraq said progress is being made in Iraq but Americans are not being informed of that by the media. He said that troop casualty reports should be balanced with reports of the good things that are happening in Iraq. Marshall was on Fox's The Factor tonight. Rumsfeld: Americans Will Stay the Course in Terror War DoD - American Forces Press Service ^ | Sept. 25, 2003 | Jim Garamone Rumsfeld: Americans Will Stay the Course in Terror War By Jim GaramoneAmerican Forces Press Service ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 25, 2003 – The American people understand the war on terrorism will be long and expensive, but they will stay the course, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said at the Defense Worldwide Combating Terrorism Conference here recently. The secretary said it is a function of leadership to sustain the drive to defeat terrorism, but he said the American people are capable of that type of consistency. "If you think about it, the American people have supported fire departments for decade after... Japanese Help Restore Neighborhood Advisory Council Building in Baghdad DoD ^ | Sept. 19, 2003 | Army Sgt. Mark S. Rickert Japanese Help Restore Neighborhood Advisory Council Building in Baghdad By U.S. Army Sgt. Mark S. Rickert / 372nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 19, 2003 — The Ghazeliyah Neighborhood Advisory Council held a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Baghdad Sept. 19, to celebrate the opening of their newly-furnished council building, while thanking the Japanese officials for their generous contributions.Before the war, this building served as a shop for officers of the former Iraqi military. Now, the people of the neighborhood have decided to convert the building into a place where citizens can come and talk to their neighborhood advisory... Let's Get a Few Things Straight The Intellectual Conservative ^ | September 24, 2003 | Edward L. Daley Let's Get a Few Things Straight by Edward L. Daley 24 September 2003 Setting the record straight on the nasty nine's complaints regarding the post-war administration of Iraq. John Kerry, during the last Democratic presidential debate, said that President Bush "clearly didn't plan for the peace, and it's extraordinary. It's an act of negligence of remarkable proportions." In that same debate, Joe Lieberman said that "the president, obviously, when he took us to war, which I supported, did not have a plan for what to do the day Saddam Hussein fell." Dick Gephardt said that the President's foreign policy was... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Read Posted September 28, 2003 Report Share Posted September 28, 2003 KK, great news feeds. I wonder if the CBC and CNN will dare to air those news pieces. They are priceless. You da man KK! And I am awaiting on the timing of the WMD evidence. Should be timed just perfectly to knock the snotty little Clark on his arse, the 4 Star General who likes to bomb civilians from 30.000 feet....what a hero. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirRiff Posted September 29, 2003 Report Share Posted September 29, 2003 And I am awaiting on the timing of the WMD evidence. Should be timed just perfectly to knock the snotty little Clark on his arse, the CIA said the Kay report will have no evidence of WMD being in existance, and even the program or intent evidence is weak they say. you are waiting for that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theloniusfleabag Posted September 29, 2003 Report Share Posted September 29, 2003 Dear Mr. Read, I wonder if the CBC and CNN will dare to air those news pieces. They are priceless. I read many of those same news pieces, some are valid, some propaganda and some irrelevant. Great news pieces? Hardly. If Mr. Bush is waiting to expose evidence in Iraq to be timed for his re-election campaign, he should be immediately arrested by the UN War Crimes Tribunal and hung at The Hague. Oh, wait, the US and Israel 'announced' that they could never be tried for war crimes. Still, whatever rights one claims to have cease to matter when one is swinging from a rope. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nova_satori Posted September 29, 2003 Report Share Posted September 29, 2003 It matter not what news source you link, should it not agree with Craig's narrow views, it must be removed and destroyed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nova_satori Posted September 29, 2003 Report Share Posted September 29, 2003 Yay! More evidence, from our dear friend BBC!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrustyKidd Posted September 30, 2003 Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 Yay! More evidence, from our dear friend BBC!!! Guys, there may well not be WMD in Iraq. Everybody was led to believe there was. Weapons inspectors, Democrats, Republicans even foreign leaders. Saddam may well have been trying to play one of his little tricks to humiliate the USA but he had done it before when weapons inspectors got too close to his WMD in the nineties. Shoot, when presidentiial palaces were placed off limits they started declaring factories presidential palaces for crying out loud. Saddam did everything in his power to lead America to believe he hadf them. Thwarting inspectors, setting last minute conditions, denying acess to documents and information in exchange for diplomatic favors and material. To cite the CIA as knowing anything is wrong, they operate on kthe best information they can get. Remember how they stated that they were starved for human int? Reports were written on what they were best able to assertain and what we knew Saddam had. Being the upfront kind of guy he is he offered no proof of what had happened to his stockpiles of WMD so you guys in all your fortune telling ability must be able to tell the world where they were destroyed/moved/sold or whatever as they don't seem to be there now according to what is being turned up. So, knowing they were never there please, call the CIA or Bush and tell him. Also, it would be very helpful if you can include dates and witnesses so that they can verify your information. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theloniusfleabag Posted September 30, 2003 Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 Dear KK, What stange games men play. I would think that, given the spirit of intent on WMD's, it would be a deterrent for anyone to have his enemy BELIEVE he possessed WMD's whether or not one had them. We all know Iraq did have WMDs at one time, and used them. If they were destroyed, why would he seek to placate the US, of all countries, with proof? What has been turned up so far are cobweb ridden facilities with no signs of recent use. All the 'evidence' so far points to Saddam telling the truth for a change. Indeed, if he had the US in fear of non-existent WMDs, and no one could prove one way or the other, Saddam should at least go down in the history books as a 'master of deception'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Read Posted September 30, 2003 Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 Why don't you read the posts and threads. It will take many months to find 10 large holes. David Kay has already publicly stated that he has a lot of information on WMD, the programs and even according to some sources some evidence already of WMD. WMD caches will be found. The more important point is pre-emption. To wait until such chemicals are launched is improvidential. The Middle East map must be remade and Iraq is the perfect place to start it. WMD was only one reason of many. It is only on CNN and in the Liberal press that WMD is portrayed as the ONLY reason to go to war. Many reasons were listed and this site has threads dealing with them. So give it up. Open and shut. Next issue please. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrustyKidd Posted September 30, 2003 Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 Dear KK,What stange games men play. I would think that, given the spirit of intent on WMD's, it would be a deterrent for anyone to have his enemy BELIEVE he possessed WMD's whether or not one had them. We all know Iraq did have WMDs at one time, and used them. If they were destroyed, why would he seek to placate the US, of all countries, with proof? What has been turned up so far are cobweb ridden facilities with no signs of recent use. All the 'evidence' so far points to Saddam telling the truth for a change. Indeed, if he had the US in fear of non-existent WMDs, and no one could prove one way or the other, Saddam should at least go down in the history books as a 'master of deception'. Deceive the US? Have you been under a rock for the past decade? He deceived the world through the UN laughing at 14 resolutions. He wasn't playing little games. Maybe to you he was but to those countries in the area jhe attacked and threatened and to the people of the USA (and rightfully so) his sabre rattling, refusal to come clean with UN inspectors was a matter of life and death. The world changed 9 11, this wasn't a visable army and still is not. They do not base themselves in one country and signal their next move. They have signaled that they will hide, wait, recruit, threaten, arm themselves with the most devastating weapons available to them (gee, Saddam had some of those) and then attack the west. The US has to be cautious, cutting terrorism off at the root and be very lucky. Lucky all the time otherwise another 9 11 WILL happen and worse. Terrorists on the other hand, only have to get lucky once. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nova_satori Posted October 2, 2003 Report Share Posted October 2, 2003 And Time proves me right, once again. Posted Sunday, September 28, 2003The trader was actually sitting at home in Baghdad, waiting. He knew it was only a matter of time before the Americans came. It was just after curfew on the night of June 22, ten weeks after Saddam Hussein's fall, when he heard a helicopter overhead, the humvees in the street outside, the knock at the door. U.S. soldiers came rushing into the house, broke his bed, searched everywhere, then put a blindfold on him and drove him away. He knew they would come because he knew what they were looking for. He had worked for the import section of Iraq's powerful Military Industrialization Commission (MIC), essentially the state's weapons-making organ, which owned hundreds of factories, research centers—everything you needed if you wanted to build an arsenal of chemical or biological weapons. He spent much of his time in the 1980s buying tons of growth medium, which scientists use to cultivate germs. "We were like traders." he says. "The scientists would tell us what they wanted, and we got it." After Gulf War I, he entertained a steady stream of U.N. weapons inspectors wanting to know what had happened to all that growth medium, how had it been used, what was left. But there wasn't much he could tell them, not that he could prove, at least. Just before the war, he recalls, the chiefs at the MIC had told people like him involved in the weapons program to hand over some of their documents and burn the rest. "They didn't realize at that time the Americans would insist on every single document," he says. "They thought the (U.S.) attacks would come and that would be it." When in the years after the war U.N. inspectors kept demanding a paper trail, the superiors got nervous. They "started asking us for the documents they had told us to destroy. They were desperate. They even offered to buy any documents we may have hidden." Ten years and another war later, a new set of interrogators is wondering what happened to Iraq's bioweapons program. On the night of his arrest, the Americans took him to a detention center at the airport, where he was kept in a cell alone, given plenty of water and military rations. Two pairs of Western interrogators took turns asking questions, sometimes through a translator, sometimes directly in English or Arabic. "They asked me about the importation of things like chemicals and about people sent abroad for special missions. The essence of it was, Are there any WMD?" They particularly focused on the period after 1998, when U.N. inspectors left Iraq. "Could any trade have happened without my knowledge within the MIC, not just my section?" The buyer says he had nothing of interest to tell the interrogators; his group, he insists, had long ago quit the weapons-of-mass-destruction business. As they pressed him about what he purchased and for whom, it seemed to him that "it was just like the blind man clutching for someone's hand to hold." After three days he was blindfolded, taken back into the city and released. The trader's story offers a glimpse into the challenges faced by David Kay, a co-head of the Iraq Survey Group, charged by the CIA with finding the WMD the Bush Administration insists Iraq has. Kay is expected to release a status report on his findings soon, possibly this week. While stressing that the account will not be the Survey Group's final word, CIA spokesman Bill Harlow allows that it "won't rule anything in or out." That remark seems a tacit acknowledgment that the U.S., after nearly six months of searching, has yet to find definitive evidence that Saddam truly posed the kind of threat the White House described in selling the war. Bush Administration officials never anticipated this predicament. They expected that WMD arsenals would be uncovered quickly once the U.S. occupied Iraq. Since then, Iraq has been scoured, and nearly every top weapons scientist has been captured or interviewed. That the investigators have found no hidden stockpiles of VX gas or anthrax or intact gas centrifuges suggests that it may be time to at least entertain the possibility that Iraqi officials all along were telling the truth when they said they no longer had a WMD program. Over the past three months, TIME has interviewed Iraqi weapons scientists, middlemen and former government officials. Saddam's henchmen all make essentially the same claim: that Iraq's once massive unconventional-weapons program was destroyed or dismantled in the 1990s and never rebuilt; that officials destroyed or never kept the documents that would prove it; that the shell games Saddam played with U.N. inspectors were designed to conceal his progress on conventional weapons systems—missiles, air defenses, radar—not biological or chemical programs; and that even Saddam, a sucker for a new gadget or invention or toxin, may not have known what he actually had or, more to the point, didn't have. It would be an irony almost too much to bear to consider that he doomed his country to war because he was intent on protecting weapons systems that didn't exist in the first place. These tales are tempting to dismiss as scripts recited by practiced liars who had been deceiving the world community for years. These sources may still be too frightened of the possibility of Saddam's return to power to tell his secrets. Or it could be that Saddam reconstituted an illicit weapons program with such secrecy that those who knew of past efforts were left out of the loop. But the unanimity of these sources' accounts can't be easily dismissed and at the very least underscores the difficulty the U.S. has in proving its case that Saddam was hoarding unconventional arms. Iraqi engineering professor Nabil al-Rawi remembers being at a conference in Beirut on Feb. 5 and watching on TV as U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell made a presentation to the U.N. laying out the U.S. case that Iraq was pressing ahead with its weapons programs. Conference participants from other Arab countries grilled al-Rawi whether Powell's charges were true. An exasperated al-Rawi tried to reassure his counterparts that he and his teams had abandoned their illegal programs years earlier. Did they believe him? "I don't think so," he says. Al-Rawi contends that he had been around long enough to know what was what. He had worked on the Iraqi nuclear program before the 1991 war and until the fall of the regime was a senior member of the mic. He and a nuclear engineer whom TIME interviewed claim that the nuclear-weapons program was not resumed after the plants were destroyed by the U.S. in Gulf War I. In his more recent work at the MIC, al-Rawi had a perspective on the biological and chemical programs as well. Those too, he insists, were shut down in the early 1990s; the scientists transferred to conventional military projects or civilian work. Last November, al-Rawi says, he was asked by Abd al-Tawab Mullah Huweish, head of the Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization, to give a seminar—essentially career counseling—to MIC scientists "on ways to attract funding for and shape new research projects because there was no weapons work for them." Sa'ad Abd al-Kahar al-Rawi, a relation of Nabil's, also thinks he would have known had Baghdad revived its WMD efforts. A professor of economics, he was a top financial adviser to the regime and knew the government books well. He says he would have known if money was disappearing into a black hole created by a special weapons project. Similarly, Iraqi scientists note that their community is small and tightly knit; most of them studied together and worked together. If a new, secret WMD program had started up, they argue, certain core players who held the necessary expertise would have had to be involved. Several scientists told TIME that all their cohort is accounted for; no one went underground. Iraq's premier scientists, according to Nabil al-Rawi, moved on to other things—teaching, water and power projects, producing generic Viagra. Many did continue developing military technology. After 1991 Nabil al-Rawi worked on electrical controls for unmanned drones and, most recently, Stealth bomber-detection radar. Such projects were meant to be hidden from U.N. inspectors, who, the Iraqis have long asserted, were riddled with American spies. The Furat facility just south of Baghdad was a known nuclear site before the first Gulf War. Last fall the White House released satellite photos showing a new building at the site and suggested it was designed for covert nuclear research. But al-Rawi claims it was rebuilt to produce radar and antiaircraft systems. When TIME visited the plant this summer, there were signs of heavy bombing, but the new building was intact—and carpeted inside with documents in French, Russian, Arabic and English, all having to do with radar equipment, frequencies and trajectories. In his U.N. presentation, Powell asserted that the Tariq State Establishment in Fallujah was designed to develop chemical weapons. When TIME visited the site, it was empty. U.N. inspectors visited the facility six times from December 2002 to January 2003 and reported that the chlorine plant that so concerned the Americans "is currently inoperative." Nabil al-Rawi says the hundreds of scientists who worked there are now "doing other things." Another site mentioned by the allies in the walk-up to the war was the Amiriyah Serum and Vaccine Institute, which both British intelligence and the CIA suspected was part of a biological-warfare program. TIME visited the site in July to see the two recently built warehouses that had raised those concerns. One had been bombed, its door cascading with a mountain of debris made up of burned and broken empty vials. The intact other building was packed to the rafters with boxes full of glassware and beakers. Pigeons roost in the ceiling, their droppings and feathers—some of it inches thick—caking the cardboard towers. Nothing appears to have been moved in a long time. U.S. intelligence officials declined to tell TIME about Washington's postwar assessment of the site. So, why all the hide and seek if suspect facilities did not contain incriminating evidence? The former Minister of Industry and Minerals, Muyassar Raja Shalah, cites national security: "The U.N.'s accusations about hiding things were true," he says, recalling charges that Iraqis hustled evidence out the back door even as U.N. inspectors entered through the front. "This was Iraq's right, because the U.N. was searching for WMD in a lot of military facilities, and of course we held a lot of military secrets relating to the national security of Iraq in these places. It was impossible to let a foreigner have a look at these secrets." Some analysts suspect that Saddam's game was a sly form of deterrence: keep the U.S. and his neighbors guessing about the extent of his arsenal to prevent a pre-emptive attack. A bluff like that had worked for him before: in 1991, during an uprising among Iraqi Kurds in Kirkuk, soldiers inside helicopters dropped a harmless white powder onto the rebels below, terrifying them into thinking it was a chemical attack. The Kurds retreated, and the uprising collapsed. Hans Blix, head of the U.N. inspection team that entered Iraq last November and left just before the war, told Australian national radio two weeks ago that "you can put up a sign on your door, beware of the dog, without having a dog." Pentagon officials were so certain before Gulf War II that the Iraqis had outfitted their forces with chemical weapons that U.S. soldiers storming toward Baghdad wore their hot, heavy chemical weapons gear, just in case. But a captain in Iraq's Special Security Organization, the agency that was responsible for, among other things, the security of weapons sites, says no such arms were available. "Trust me," he says, his eyes narrowed, as he sits in a back-alley teahouse in Tikrit, "if we had them, we would have used them, especially in the battle for the airport. We wanted them but didn't have any." Colonel Ali Jaffar Hussan al-Duri, a Republican Guard armored-corps commander who fought in the Iran-Iraq war and in both Gulf Wars, remembers the time when Iraq's Chemical Corps was fear inspiring. "We were much better at it than the Iranians," he says, who are thought to have suffered as many as 80,000 casualties in chemical attacks. But after Gulf War I, Saddam's son-in-law Hussein Kamal, who headed the MIC, took the most talented Chemical Corps officers with him, according to Hussan. After that, he claims, the unit became a joke. "It should have been a sensitive unit—it once was—but in the end that's where we dumped our worst soldiers." Comments a Republican Guard major of the Corps: "It had nothing." If that's true, what happened to the banned weapons Iraq once possessed? In the inspections regime that lasted from 1991 to 1998, the U.N. oversaw the destruction of large stores of illicit arms. Some documented inventories, however, were never satisfactorily accounted for; these included tons of chemical agents as well as stores of anthrax and VX poison. The Iraqis eventually owned up to producing these supplies but insisted that they had disposed of much of them in 1991 when no one was looking and had kept no records of the destruction. That made Blix wonder. In an interview with TIME in February, he described Iraq as "one of the best-organized regimes in the Arab world" and noted "when they have had need of something to show, then they have been able to do so." A former MIC official insists that this view is mistaken. "In Iraq we don't write everything," he says. The claim that Saddam would destroy his most dangerous weapons of his own accord and not retain the means to prove it seems a stretch. But a captain in the Mukhabarat, the main Iraqi intelligence service, says he was a witness to just such an exercise. In July 1991, he says, he traveled into the Nibai desert in a caravan of trucks carrying 25 missiles loaded with biological agents. First the bulldozers took a week to bury them. It took three more weeks to evacuate the area. Then the missiles were exploded. No one kept any kind of documentation, the captain says. "We just did it." This meant that when weapons inspectors came demanding verification, the Iraqis could not prove what or how much had been destroyed. Sa'ad al-Rawi contends that the men who carried out such missions were junior level, sergeants and first sergeants. "They are not educated men," he says. "You order them to do something, they do it. When we had to try to account for this, we tried to recall them in 1997, but many had of course left the army and were hard to find. And the ones we did find certainly couldn't remember exactly how many missiles were buried, nor what was in each of them." That still leaves unanswered why the Iraqis would have unilaterally destroyed their most potent arms. One theory, advanced by the U.N., is that the regime used these exercises as a cover for retaining a fraction of their stores. The idea is that they would destroy quantities of weapons (creating a disposal site and eyewitnesses, if not written records) and claim to have got rid of everything yet actually hold on to some of it. The Mukhabarat captain concedes that scientists kept small amounts of VX and mustard gas for future experiments. "I saw it myself, several times," he says. Samir, a chemicals expert who worked for a branch of the MIC called the National Monitoring Directorate, says he knows of a case in which 14 artillery shells filled with mustard gas were preserved out of a batch of 250 slated for destruction. The main purpose of keeping them, he says, was to test their deterioration over time. The Iraqis handed over the shells to the U.N. in 1997, claiming that they had been mis-stored and recently discovered, an explanation Samir says was a ruse. When four of the shells were unsealed, tests found their contents to be 97% pure. "The gas was perfect," says Samir. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Read Posted October 2, 2003 Report Share Posted October 2, 2003 Read your own post again. It supports that they kept WMD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nova_satori Posted October 2, 2003 Report Share Posted October 2, 2003 Yes, miniscule amounts of weapons. Not the tons and tons and tons of WMD that you and your extremists have been lying about. I'm suprised you haven't declared that Time should be destroyed like BBC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Read Posted October 2, 2003 Report Share Posted October 2, 2003 If you bothered to read the posts, i think i have stated about 1.000 x that there are 100 tonnes only of WMD. These can hidden in 10 large holes. Your own post supports the fact that WMD existed. So thanks for that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirRiff Posted October 2, 2003 Report Share Posted October 2, 2003 David Kay has already publicly stated that he has a lot of information on WMD, the programs and even according to some sources some evidence already of WMD. WMD caches will be found. actually no his report as reported by many news organizations of all types specifically has no evidence of WMDS existing in the near past, or EVEN programs. all the mentions as fact is duel use facitilities that could be transformed to WMD programs. it was reported all over the media by insiders who have seen it. there will be no WMD surprise. SirRiff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nova_satori Posted October 2, 2003 Report Share Posted October 2, 2003 If you bothered to read the posts, i think i have stated about 1.000 x that there are 100 tonnes only of WMD.These can hidden in 10 large holes. Your own post supports the fact that WMD existed. So thanks for that. You're missing the whole point, as usual. No one has contested that the WMD did exist. We are contending that they existed at the time that Bush called for war on the threats of the WMD. There isn't any evidence that the WMD programs existed past 1999. The article does not support your claim that there were the WMD that Bush said were a threat. It supports the claim that there were no WMD or even the ability to produce them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Read Posted October 2, 2003 Report Share Posted October 2, 2003 Kay told reporters that investigators had uncovered useful documents about Iraq's WMD programs and are getting increased cooperation from Iraqis. "I think the American people should be prepared for surprises," said Kay. "I think it's very likely that we will discover remarkable surprises in this enterprise." But he had cautioned that Saddam had engaged in an amazing active deception program that would be difficult to unravel. "It's going to take time. The Iraqis had over two decades to develop these weapons, and hiding them was an essential part of their program," Kay said. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Dog Posted October 2, 2003 Author Report Share Posted October 2, 2003 Kay told reporters that investigators had uncovered useful documents about Iraq's WMD programs and are getting increased cooperation from Iraqis. Programs. As in: plans. Not the clear and present threat that Bushco claimed existed before the war. Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weaponsof mass destruction. Dick Cheney Speech to VFW National Convention August 26, 2002 We know for a fact that there are weapons there.Ari Fleischer Press Briefing January 9, 2003 Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had thematerials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. George W. Bush State of the Union Address January 28, 2003 Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubtthat the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. George W. Bush Address to the Nation March 17, 2003 So, Bush and Blair told the world Iraq represented an immediate threat and needed to be disarmed immediately. They said nothing about Iraq might be a threat 5 or so years down the road. Right...now. Oh, but then WMD weren't the reason they went to war, isn't that right? But make no mistake -- as I said earlier -- we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about. And we have high confidence it will be found.Ari Fleischer Press Briefing April 10, 2003 How many WMD can dance on the head of a pin, Craig? That's what your hair-splitting about "violations of the UN" (an organization you have nothing but contempt for and fear of) and "human rights" (which never concerned your ilk when Saddam was gassing Iranians and Kurds). You've been had. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Read Posted October 2, 2003 Report Share Posted October 2, 2003 Had ? So programs that can be converted from domestic to military use in a night have us 'had'. Laughable. So you and the geniuses on the left would like to wait for an inevitable attack before then meekly suggesting that they might have had a weapons program. The UN and every foreign agency including CSIS documented that Hussein had WMD. Pre-emption is the right policy and WMD was only ONE of many reasons why Iraq was invaded. If you bothered to read the postings you would know this. You would also know that 10 large holes would account for 100 tonnes of chemical material. These holes can be anywhere in Iraq. I suppose you with your superman vision could find them. In that case lend a hand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nova_satori Posted October 3, 2003 Report Share Posted October 3, 2003 On biological weapons, a single vial of a strain of botulinum, a poison that can be used as a weapon, located at the home of a known biological weapons scientist. _ On chemical weapons, multiple sources told the weapons hunting group that Iraq did not have a large, ongoing, centrally controlled program after 1991. There had been reports that Iraq retained some of its old chemical weapons but Kay said none had been found. _ On nuclear weapons, Kay said in his statement to Congress that despite evidence of Saddam's continued ambition to acquire nuclear weapons, "to date we have not uncovered evidence that Iraq undertook significant post-1998 steps to actually build nuclear weapons or produce fissile material." Yes, because a single vial is 100 tons of active, ready to be used bio/chemical weapons! Wait, who said they didn't have any proof or any nukes or nuke projects after 1999! Even i was generous! Had ? So programs that can be converted from domestic to military use in a night have us 'had'. Um, the time report has already dealt with your statement. So you and the geniuses on the left would like to wait for an inevitable attack before then meekly suggesting that they might have had a weapons program. Sure, i'll wait for the inevitable attack that will commited by weapons that don't exist. Executed with expertise they don't have. Delivered by delivery systems that don't exist. With money that wasn't funded towards a non-existing nuclear and bio weapons programs! The UN and every foreign agency including CSIS documented that Hussein had WMD. Before 1998. wait, if you had it before, you still must have it now. Thus, i had $500 a year ago, so thus i must have that SAME $500 now! I had a sandwich I ate two days ago, thus I must have that SAME sandwich today in my lunchbox! If you bothered to read the postings you would know this. If you bothered to read the posts and reports, none of them state they had any large amount, or even moderate, or anything beyond a tiny fraction of what they had before. Definittely not 100 tons. Maybe a vial or two, or maybe two or three canisters. But not 100 tons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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