Motives And Evidence For War In Iraq In Doubt -

[Moderate Centrist]

I just read a story on the value of Iraqi defectors claims on Saddam's weapons programs. It appears much of their information was useless.

Also, the CIA had a much different view of the war than the White House which appears to be totally driven by ideology.

For the full story please check out this link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianweekly/s...1053508,00.html

The question now is can the Democrats turn this and other issues into a major attack on Bush?

[Bushmustgo]

They already have and that's the reason Howard Dean and Gen. Wesley Clark have been so successful as of now!

[FastNed]

Hi Mod, without comment on the value of your quote from the Guardian - no doubt an objective source, just ask PM Blair - you are missing a major factor in American Politics. For eight years under Pres. Clinton, at the CIA, State Dept., Army, Pentagon, etc., democrats were promoted and encouraged. Clinton's anti-military, Tranzi politics flourished. The likes of Wilson IV were promoted ahead of their abilities. In effect, what we have in place today is a Fifth Column alive and well in American government advancing their tranzi agenda whenever possible.

This 'elite' knows that their view of the world is 'correct', of course it must be!

It is a serious ongoing American problem; President Bush, perhaps wisely, has not purged either State or the CIA. The Palme affair thou, may force a reevaluation of this 'live and let live' policy at the CIA.

[Craig Read]

The Guardian [and the BBC] are virulently anti-American. Their op ed pages seethe with rage and illogicity about the US. The Bush visit to Britain emphasised this sad sorry image of the Guardian and other soft headed newspapers using vitriolic anti-US nonsense to sell papers. It ranks up there with photos of Sarah getting her feet sucked as muck raking idiocy.

The CIA published many reports of the danger of the Iraqi regime. Its chief was fully behind the invasion. Their intelligence was faulty - but so was the intelligence of every nation and the UNO - all of whom reached similar conclusions. CSIS published a paper last fall which i have posted elsewhere on this site claiming that Iraq posed a direct threat to Canadian assets.

The war was justified. What is not justified is bad journalism at left liberal papers who are just too pissed off to admit that on every major issue - they are wrong.

[SirRiff]

since when did it become anti american to point out all the lies and inconsistencies and hypocrisies of the american gov?

that sounds about as credible as the crazy Palestinians who think criticizing suicide bombers is anti-arab.

when the US suddenly declares saddam and osama evil, after DECADES of supporting them, arming them, doing business with them, ignoring thier murders, being silent on thier violence, THAT IS COMPLICITY IN THE ACTS.

so yeah, when the american PR machine comes out in suit and ties and pretends to be shocked at this, and blah about good and evil and freedom, its necessary to point out the amoral hypocricy that exists. the lies on WMDs are just a part of that. forgive us for not being impressed.

[Morgan]

Here's a news story from the Telegraph today that is an interview with the high ranking Iraqi Colonel, who was the source for the UK's claim that Saddam could unleash WMD in 45 minutes. Read it here or read it nowhere...well, at least not in the Guardian!

Iraqi Colonel stands by his claim that Saddam could unleash WMD in 45 minutes Dec.7/03 Telegraph

Lieutenant-Colonel al-Dabbagh is not a man who is easily frightened. Having spied on Saddam's regime for British and American intelligence for more than seven years, the 40-year-old former Iraqi air defence commander lived with the constant fear that he might be caught, tortured and executed.

So when last week, shortly after I had interviewed him in Baghdad about his involvement in the infamous 45-minute claim, he received two death threats from Saddam's loyalists, his determination to describe his involvement in revealing details of the former Iraqi dictator's deployment of weapons of mass destruction remained undiminished.

So why was he prepared to risk his life by disclosing to The Telegraph his involvement in smuggling top secret information about Saddam's WMD capability out of the country?"

I admire Mr Blair because he made Iraq secure from Saddam. If Saddam's people kill me for saying this, I do not mind. I have done my duty to my country and we have got rid of Saddam."And if the British Government wants me to come to London to tell the truth about Saddam's secret weapons programme, I am ready to help in any way I can."

Although Lt Col al-Dabbagh agreed to talk freely about his spying activities, he asked that we only publish his family name and that we did not photograph his face. In Arab culture, men are better known by their first name and patronym. "I have to protect my family somehow," said Lt Col al-Dabbagh, who is married and has several children.

When I asked him whether the information in the document relating to the 45-minute issue was 100 per cent accurate, he responded with characteristic Iraqi enthusiasm: "It is 200 per cent accurate!" he exclaimed. "And forget 45 minutes. We could have fired them within half an hour."

When I asked him whether he was the original source of the intelligence, he replied simply: "I am the one responsible for providing this information."British intelligence has admitted that it relied on a single source for the 45-minute claim, prompting several intelligence experts at the Ministry of Defence, including Dr David Kelly, to question its veracity.

Lt Col al-Dabbagh's claim to be the source of the 45-minute claim, however, is backed up by General A.J.M. Muhie, his brother-in-law, who helped to smuggle the intelligence out of Iraq to the Wimbledon headquarters of the Iraqi National Accord (INA), which was then one of the leading Iraqi exile groups and is now a key member of Iraq's Governing Council. "We only had one source for this information and that was Dabbagh," said Gen Muhie.

Like most people who have been closely involved with Iraq for many years, I was aware that both SIS and America's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had relied heavily on Iraqi exile groups for intelligence on what was going on inside Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Of those the most reliable were generally held to be the Kurds and the INA. Information provided by the Kurds was limited because, as their region was under the protection of the international no-fly zone, they had little if any direct contact with Saddam's regime.The INA, on the other hand, was highly regarded at both the SIS's London headquarters in Vauxhall and the CIA in Langley, Virginia, and in the 1990s had been involved in a failed CIA attempt to overthrow Saddam.

The INA's intelligence depended on a number of serving and retired Iraqi military officers and Ba'athists prepared to risk their lives to rid the country of Saddam. As Lt Col al-Dabbagh told me last week: "At any moment I could have been caught and hanged."

Apart from confirming that he passed information about Iraq's ability to launch WMD within 45 minutes to Gen Muhie, Lt Col al-Dabbagh was able to provide a fascinating insight into the war preparations undertaken by Saddam in the months leading up to the war.

According to one document that Lt Col al-Dabbagh sent to London - the minutes of a meeting Saddam held in Baghdad in December 2001 after the Afghan conflict - Saddam called a meeting of his top commanders to discuss how Iraq could defend itself against an attack that Saddam believed was "inevitable".

Saddam was well aware that Iraq could not possibly win a conventional military conflict against a US-led coalition, and in early 2002 he gave orders for large quantities of weapons to be hidden at strategic locations throughout the country. "The battle with America is inevitable," the document states. "What is of paramount importance is how to sustain the continuation of war after occupation."

To that end Saddam ordered that 30 per cent of the country's weaponry be hidden at secret locations which were to be marked by Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) co-ordinates. These were to include guns, rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank weapons and Strella surface-to-air missiles (such as the one fired at the DHL cargo plane last month).

The only people who knew the precise location of all the arms caches were Saddam, his son Qusay and Abid Hamid Mahmud, his private secretary, since captured by coalition forces. "Saddam Hussein said that if any of these weapons were found by ordinary Iraqi people then the head of the military unit would be hanged immediately," said Lt Col al-Dabbagh.

According to Lt Col al-Dabbagh, it was at about this time that he and other senior commanders were informed that Saddam intended to deploy his WMD arsenal to defend the country against an American-led attack. At a meeting that took place six months before the war, one of Saddam's senior officials told a group of Iraqi air defence commanders that they had many weapons that could be used to attack the US and UK."

They told us that they [coalition troops] cannot pass across Iraq because we will use everything, from the knife to nuclear weapons, to defend ourselves," said Lt Col al-Dabbagh.The weapons themselves were finally deployed at his own unit towards the end of last year. "They arrived in boxes marked 'Made in Iraq' and looked like something you fired with a rocket-propelled grenade," Lt Col al-Dabbagh explained."They were either chemical or biological weapons; I don't know which, because only the Fedayeen and the Special Republican Guard were allowed to use them.

All I know is that we were told that when we used these weapons we had to wear gas masks."According to information he learnt subsequently from his military colleagues, the weapons were made at factories at Habbaniyah, al-Nahrawan, Nabbai and al-Latifia.

Saddam's officials also gave elaborate instructions on how to use the weapons. Because of their limited range, those responsible for firing them were to dress in civilian clothes and drive in civilian vehicles with yellow number plates."Each military unit was given two four-wheel drive Isuzu cars," said Lt Col al-Dabbagh. "We were not allowed to use them and they had to be kept in good condition."

If the war reached a critical stage and Iraq's forces were in danger of being overrun, then designated officers would be given the task of driving the vehicles towards coalition positions and firing the weapons."We were instructed that when we got the order we must use these cars and use the secret weapon. We were also told that if any of us discussed this weapon with any of our colleagues we would be hanged immediately."

He believes that the only reason these weapons were not used during Operation Iraqi Freedom last spring is that the bulk of the Iraqi army refused to fight for Saddam."The West should thank God that the Iraqi army decided not to fight," he said. "If the army had fought for Saddam, and used these weapons, there would have been terrible consequences."

Lt Col al-Dabbagh has no idea what became of the weapons because shortly before hostilities commenced he was recalled to Iraq's air defence headquarters in Baghdad, although he believes that most of them were taken away by Saddam's Fedayeen and hidden away.Convinced that the weapons are still hidden in Iraq, Lt Col al-Dabbagh doesn't believe any of them will be found until Saddam is caught or killed.

"All the people who worked on these weapons have either escaped or disappeared. Only when Saddam is captured will these people talk openly about these weapons. Then they will reveal where they are."

2. As for the evil USA having supported Saddam, SirRiff you seem to have selective amnesia. After the first Gulf War, the USA had nothing to do with Saddam. The folks who propped him up, supported him, let him kill Iraqis at whim were your heroes at the UN[ Syria, France, Germany, Russia, to name a few] and the UN NGO's as well...we wonder where the money went...that fancy laabel called food for oil...the USA has now asked the UN for an accounting of that money and golly, gee...flutter, flutter, there seems to be a problem with all the paper work...so the USA did more than atone for the error of their ways, whereas your UN heroes have not, so until you can figure out a way to explain why you don't rant about the aforementioned, please cease and desist with your anti-American hate rants. The Iraqis should be so lucky that there's a US, UK, Australia, or they would still be in their underground prisons or six feet under in new graves. Kofi Annan and da boys at the UN could care less, that's for sure. Too busy counting their pay-offs...

3. As for Wilson and his wife, the "stealthy" Valerie Plame...hee, hee...guess the Guardian hasn't caught up with the latest news about those 2 showboats.

Those to Democrat insiders have kind of discredited themselves with their front page pictures and extensive interview in the upcoming Vanity Fair. Sigh...another Dumbocrat attempt to discredit Bush ends in laughter.

CIA Agent Valerie Plame goes undercover in Vanity Fair, Washington Post,Dec.03/03

Whopper: Joseph Wilson, or Goodbye Plamegate, Dec.03/03 Slate

[Craig Read]

Morgan great post. Thanks.

This piece is very telling:

The only people who knew the precise location of all the arms caches were Saddam, his son Qusay and Abid Hamid Mahmud, his private secretary, since captured by coalition forces. "Saddam Hussein said that if any of these weapons were found by ordinary Iraqi people then the head of the military unit would be hanged immediately," said Lt Col al-Dabbagh.

According to Lt Col al-Dabbagh, it was at about this time that he and other senior commanders were informed that Saddam intended to deploy his WMD arsenal to defend the country against an American-led attack. At a meeting that took place six months before the war, one of Saddam's senior officials told a group of Iraqi air defence commanders that they had many weapons that could be used to attack the US and UK."

From the books and articles i have read from people on the CIA desk, the above quote fits in perfectly with their analysis. These people maintain that WMD will ONLY be found with the aid of those who know where the caches are.

If the above quote is correct it will take a VERY long time indeed to find WMD, far longer than originally suspect. 100 Tonnes or 50 or 25 of chemical compounds can be hidden in a half dozen basements or a few large holes.

Your article just reinforces my view that we can take NO chances in today's world and that pre-emption is necessary AND moral.

Great post Morgan.

[Morgan]

In addition to the interview with Lt Col al-Dabbagh in Baghdad,who was the source for the UK report on Saddam's WMD, here's another interesting discovery in Baghdad about Saddam's missile deal with N. Korea. Looks like the chicks are coming home to rest:

SADDAM Hussein was engaged in a secret deal with North Korea to build a missile production system - giving the lie to claims the former Iraqi dictator was isolated from other "rogue states". Saddam’s sons and Iraqi military leaders brokered a deal with North Korea during negotiations held over two years in Syria, according to computer files reportedly found in Baghdad. The files show Saddam wanted to buy the North Korean Rodong missile system and the means to manufacture it on Iraqi soil. Components for the missiles, capable of hitting US bases and allies in the region, would have been smuggled through Syria, the New York Times reported. But the deal collapsed because it was considered too risky during the build-up to the coalition invasion in March. The news came in the wake of one of the bloodiest battles between the coalition forces and local militia since the fall of Saddam, when Iraqi rebels ambushed convoys delivering new bank notes in the northern town of Samarra.

Saddam's missile deal with N. Korea, Dec.02/03 The Scotsman

Ummm...I don't recall that CBC covered this in the news, eh?

[SirRiff]

As for the evil USA having supported Saddam, SirRiff you seem to have selective amnesia. After the first Gulf War, the USA had nothing to do with Saddam. The folks who propped him up, supported him, let him kill Iraqis at whim were your heroes at the UN[ Syria, France, Germany, Russia, to name a few] and the UN NGO's as well...we wonder where the money went.

the US supported saddam before the first gulf war genious, while he was killing his own people. they have him weapons to kill iranians, and gave iranians weapons to kill iraqis.

while everycountry looked the other way, the US is the only currently currently occupying iraq while pretending to be shocked at how evil saddam was.

fantasitic point though, that the US stopped supporting him after they attacked him for messing with thier oil....up till that point no problem at all, go figure.

[Morgan]

SirRiff said:

the US supported saddam before the first gulf war genious, while he was killing his own people. they have him weapons to kill iranians, and gave iranians weapons to kill iraqis while everycountry looked the other way, the US is the only currently currently occupying iraq while pretending to be shocked at how evil saddam was.

Pay attention and you might learn some facts to displace your myths:

Source: "The fiction of the peaceniks is overdue for pulping" by MICHAEL GOVE APRIL 08, 2003 TIMES OF LONDON ONLINE

…The disintegration of Saddam’s regime has been revealing, not just about the grotesque nature of Baathist tyranny, but also about the faulty world view of those who opposed this war.

It would be premature to rejoice while Iraq’s dictator has not yet been run to ground, and while fighting that will claim more lives continues. But it is not too soon to expose the pernicious nonsense that passed for geopolitical wisdom before the conflict began — the pulp fiction of the peaceniks — so that we can learn from their mistakes.

Honest men can differ. But we will find it more difficult to build something worthwhile on the rubble of Saddam’s regime if we do not also dismantle those positions occupied before the war that were built on intellectual dishonesty…

The first is the allegation, peddled by Charles Kennedy and Robin Cook among others, that Britain and America armed Saddam’s tyranny…

The first myth, the claim that Iraq’s liberators were once Saddam’s armourers, may seem to be of diminishing relevance now that so much of Saddam’s arsenal is scrap metal.

But it matters because it encapsulates the tendency of those who oppose Anglo-American policy to believe the worst of the US and Britain, to attribute cynical commercial motives to those governments actually prepared to take risks for international security, and to pass over the sins of the world’s real cowboys.

It is certainly true that most of Saddam’s apparatus of terror was supplied by permanent members of the UN Security Council who have abused their position to further their own interests, heedless of innocent deaths.

But the guilty men are not the Americans and the British, but the French, Russians and Chinese.

According to figures compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, between 1973 and 2002 Russia supplied 57 per cent of Saddam’s arms imports, France 13 per cent and China 12 per cent.

The US supplied at most just 1 per cent and Britain significantly less than that. Brazil supplied more weaponry to Saddam than the US and Britain combined.

No wonder France, Russia and China declined to support action to disarm one of their best customers. And no wonder they are so keen to have their pet UN run the country now. We cannot have any inconvenient invoices falling into the wrong hands now, can we? …

Read it and weep, "genious."

From 1973 to 2002 the biggest suppliers of weapons to Saddam were your UN heroes - Russia, France, and China - the ones who were supposedly turning a blind eye to the USA selling weapons to Saddam.

[Craig Read]

Morgan, thanks for the post. Ties in with my other posts that France, Germany and Russia fund terrorist regimes around the world.

The Frogs and Ruskies made $7 billion per year on average during the 1990s in the 'Oil for anything' program run by their friends at the UNO. Iraq was the UN's largest revenue generating program and the UN made a clear profit of about $21 billion over 10 years from Iraq [i have posted numerous sources on this site on these #'s]. Not bad for a bunch of socialists who supposedly hate the profit motive and believe that capitalism is causing global warming.

Gee, is that why the UN and France and Russia opposed Gulf War II - over money ? Or was it morality, concern for the Iraqi people and respect for UN processes ?

Duh, i see a pattern involving doneiro.

Iraq was the Frog's single largest foreign client for weapons, munitions and and hardware exports !!! Chirac and Primakov had campaigns financed by Hussein.

How much did US firms sell to Iraq ? How much did US politicians make off Hussein ? Nothing you say. Interesting.

But hey don't let reality intrude your view that 'America stupid, UN/France/Canada/Islam Smart.'

Don't fall off the turnip truck now Homer, might hurt that cement head.

[SirRiff]

genIUs, MAYBE, just MAYBE, the US gov does its illegal war activities in secret. there is a concept.

for example, could you please post the receipts from the stinger missles given to osamas crew? no receipts? go figure.

maybe you can get them from the white house credit card statements.

hey, do you have the cocktail napkins showing the sept 1973 coup in chile was assisted by teh CIA?

got the invoices from the chemical weapons precursors sold to iraq by american companies?

who points you astonishingly fail to comprehend

1. immoral and illegal actions by the US are NOT rendered null by equal or greater immoral and illegal actions by others. I am surprised i have to explain this to you. do you really think world can be alllowed to run on a "he started it" mentality? that all we need to do is find someone worse to justify our actions?

2. the US is the ONLY nation that went to war against against world opinion, is occupying iraq, and is lecturing others about morality as if they have divine intentions. THEY are the ones that have to justify their actions. would you really expect to hold russia accountable when they cant even feed thier population and keep thier country together when the US is galavanting around the world lecturing about terrorism and morality and democracy? i think its clear the US is the only actor with real power to endulge itself, and is currently implementing its will, thus it stands to reason they should be held to the highest standards right now. if they all pack up and go home and harm nobody anymore, then they need not be held to the standards they themselves proclaim.

sirriff

[Morgan]

SirRiff,

The "world opinion" that the US went against to invade Iraq were the same countries that were profiting from Saddam staying in power. Don't you read?

I wasn't bringing in other countries "to share" culpability with the USA. Rather, I was showing you documented statistics that from 1973 to 2002, Russia, France, and China were the big players with Saddam, not the USA. Don't you read?

As for your half-baked theories about invisible"receipts from the stinger missles"and imaginery"white house credit card statements" and disappearing"cocktail napkins showing the sept 1973 coup in chile was assisted by teh CIA" and non-existent "invoices from the chemical weapons precursors sold to iraq by american companies"...everyone's time is wasted plowing through all that unsubstantiated drivel.

Unfortunately, it's become increasingly obvious that your anti-American opinions have no rational basis.

[Craig Read]

Morgan i agree. There are ample posts dealing with the perfidy of the UNO and its allies - France and Russia - in Iraq and elsewhere.

The EU is the largest single funder of Palestinian terror. I don't see any media coverage of the misuse of EU funds by Arafat and his ugly cabal. Just the usual anti-Jewish ravings - focused now on the wall. As if Israeli security would be better served by open borders with the PLA/O and its terrorist regime.

I don't know why Riff is even allowed to post his drivel here. No sources, no reasoning, just vitriolic hate - and oh let's just keep free riding off the US military, Pharma and health care sectors shall we.

Dat's da Cdn way.