WMD materials in Iraq
(I originally wrote this article back in 2008 at the now defunct website "On the Knoll")
WMD materials in Iraq
Well... like I have said here before, the true story of the WMDs in Iraq will
not be known for sometime, but more and more information is coming out pointing
that "something" was there...
Here is some info:
Iraqi "yellow cake" transferred:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-07-07-iraq-uranium_x.htm
Quote: "The nearly 2 tons of low-enriched uranium and approximately 1,000
highly radioactive items transferred from Iraq to the United States last month
had been placed under seal by the International Atomic Energy Agency at the
sprawling Tuwaitha nuclear complex, 12 miles south of Baghdad, the officials
said."
...material that could have been used to make dirty bombs...well, if that is
not materials for a form of WMDs then I do not know what is kids!
This nuclear material was hidden from the UN inspectors, a clear violation of
the UN sanctions and restrictions! ...never mind in addition to the many other
things we also found after the invasion, example:
During the 1970s and early 1980s, Iraq bought uranium in various forms from the international market. These materials included about 486 tons of yellowcake, 33,470 kg of “natural” uranium dioxide, 1,767 kg of “low-enriched” uranium dioxide (2.6 percent 235U), and 6,005 kg of “depleted” uranium dioxide from Portugal, Italy, Niger, and Brazil.
Prior to 1991, Iraq also acquired highly enriched uranium for its research reactors from France and Russia—material that was removed from Iraq following the 1991 Gulf war.
But following the Husayn Kamil defection in 1995, Iraq admitted that in 1991 it had intended to use this highly enriched fuel as part of a “crash program” to develop a nuclear weapon.
Again! more evidence that Saddam HAD materials for
WMDs!
Here is more proof
Saddam was hiding stuff… Forbidden Iraqi Air Force planes buried in the sand at
The al Taqqadum air field west of Baghdad in Iraq (posted photos:
Quote:" What
military search teams eventually found at al Taqqadum, in July 2003: a reported
30 to 40 planes, including several MiG-25 and Su-25 ground attack jets, buried
more than 10 feet beneath tons of soil and covered with camouflage netting.
According to the Pentagon, at least one of the MiG-25s was found because
searchers spotted its twin tail fins protruding from the sand. Some of the
planes had been wrapped in plastic sheeting to protect their electronics and
machinery from the sand (and some had had their wings removed), but others were
interred with little or no protection from the sand or the elements. The
recovery teams had to use large earth-moving equipment to uncover the
aircraft."
(Press release by Department of Defense, 2003)
More WMD evidence:
" Iraqi Chemical Stash Uncovered",
Quote: "BAGHDAD, Aug. 13 -- U.S. troops raiding a warehouse in the
northern city of Mosul uncovered a suspected chemical weapons factory
containing 1,500 gallons of chemicals believed destined for attacks on U.S. and
Iraqi forces and civilians, military officials said Saturday.
Monday's early morning raid found 11 precursor agents, "some of them quite
dangerous by themselves," a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Steven A. Boylan,
said in Baghdad."
This is more evidence that Iraqi forces under Saddam had WMD expertise, and even
after the fall of their leader in 2003 the remaining dismembered Baathists were
trying to use that knowledge and some leftover WMD materials to use against our
forces!
...more evidence:
Chemical weapon antidotes found in Iraqi base:
Quote: "US Marines say they have discovered drugs used by soldiers to counter chemical weapons and 3000 chemical protection suits at a hospital used by Iraqi forces in the town of An Nasariyah. The discovery has added to fears that Iraq might use chemical weapons against invading British and US troops. In particular, General Vincent Brooks, at US Central Command in Doha, Qatar, said on Wednesday that Marines had confiscated "nerve agent antidote auto-injectors" at the hospital."
This reminds me of a blunt phrase: "you don't put a condom on unless you
are going to screw, do you?" ...same thing here, Saddam forces did not have anti-chemical agent drugs unless
they expected chemical weapons (again WMDs) to be used...!
…and the United States does not use WMDs, it is a matter of national policy, as
were Saddam HAD... against Iran, and its own people, the Kurds!
...and more evidence:
UK Troops Say They Find More Iraqi Chemical Suits
Quote: "British troops have found a stash of Iraqi equipment designed to
protect soldiers from chemical attack, including protective suits, training
materials and nerve gas antidote.
Sunday's discovery at an ordinance facility south of Basra did not appear to
include any actual weapons of mass destruction -- the elusive "smoking
gun" that Washington and London hope will eventually justify their
invasion of Iraq.
But troops did find items including a Geiger counter, gas masks and nerve gas
simulators, which British officers said indicated that Iraqi troops were being
trained to deal with the possibility of chemical or nuclear warfare."
...again my blunt phrase: "you don't put a condom on unless you are going
to screw, do you?"
WMD gear, gas masks, WMD warfare TRAINING simulators...!
...more, this evidence a CNN report in 2003...
"Nuke program parts unearthed in Baghdad back yard"
Quote: "(CNN) -- The CIA has in its hands the critical parts of a key
piece of Iraqi nuclear technology -- parts needed to develop a bomb program --
that were dug up in a back yard in Baghdad, CNN has learned.
The parts, with accompanying plans, were unearthed by Iraqi scientist Mahdi
Obeidi who had hidden them under a rose bush in his garden 12 years ago under
orders from Qusay Hussein and Saddam Hussein's then son-in-law, Hussein
Kamel."
...again my blunt phrase: "you don't put a condom on unless you are going
to screw, do you?"
It is clear Saddam was in violation of UN sanctions again and again... and
again, and just waiting for the UN to give up so he could get "back to
business"...!
There are reports that he even did have WMDs, but as we prepared for our final
assault he decided to send the WMD stockpile in a hurry to his Baath Party pals
in Syria...:
"Iraq's WMD Secreted in Syria, Sada Says"
Quote: "The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein's air
force says Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war by
loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were
removed."
…more, satellite picture of trucks leaving weapons
depot for Syria:
photo @
(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC7O1rS-GuSBVx8vkE3f6j8JH8THo7-10Hvrd50sKeHnqK8N5Dp5AQGM8_Wx4jcwEpVqS72ib_46HcSy33A2i3mc36J7hPI0et_SFXThIzJu0gzQN6s2p4p3jSUfTha221LpanV5zRM_NB/s400/070704-iraq-trucks.jpg)
“Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James
Clapper, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, now director of
the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, told reporters that U.S. surveillance
satellites captured images of vehicle traffic dispersing WMD materiel to urban
locations in Iraq and moving large quantities into Syria as well…”
"Those below the senior leadership
saw what was coming, and I think they went to extraordinary lengths to
[dispose, destroy and disperse] the evidence," said Gen. Clapper.
"By the time that we got to a lot of
these facilities...there wasn't that much there to look at. There was clearly
an effort to disperse, bury and conceal certain equipment prior to
inspections."
Gen. Clapper added that there is "no question" that people and WMD
materiel were moved by truck convoys into Syria.
So here is what happened, Saddam knew we were coming, there are reports that he
even got details of the American invasion from the Russians:
"Iraq Archive Document Alleges Russian Official Described Locations,
Troops, Tanks and Other Forces Before Operation Iraqi Freedom Began" ABC
news.
Saddam then knew we were coming, he knew that not in a million years was it
possible for him and his forces to stop us, and that he was going to loose
badly, so instead of been caught "red handed" with WMDs he decided to
pull the oldest trick in the book...pass the weapons to a "stasher"
for safe keeping (Syria) so then he would look "clean" of WMDs after
the invasion in the eyes of the world....oldest trick in the book.
Hey... anyone heard of this: drug dealer knows cops are coming, he passes drugs
to pal near by, cops arrive, he gets frisked and found "clean", cops
leave, he gets drugs back from stanching pal and is back in business...oldest
trick in the book kids!
Same thing here!
All of this point to a more troubling thing, and that is that if all those WMDs
got away, those WMDs can now be in the hands of other terrorist states and/or
groups, and the administration knows this, but prefers to take "a
hit" by been seen as having been "wrong" in the intelligence assessment
of Iraq having WMDs, rather than having been right all along on Saddam having WMDs, but having really screwed up in losing the opportunity to capture those weapons in Iraq by not invading with
enough forces (also reason for the mess after the invasion), and now those weapons
are in the hands of many of our enemies.
And this is possibly the real
truth of the Iraq WMDs story.
My scenario:
Saddam had WMDs', he saw us coming, the Russians even gave him intel on how and
were we were going to come in from, he realized he could not stop us, so he
decided to get rid of the weapons until a later time by passing them to the
guys next door in Syria; we came in too late, too slow to catch the WMDs
weapons been moved, Bush realized that he had just missed the WMDs and that it
was too late for him to go after them in Syria (never mind that now he, Bush,
was bogged down in a guerrilla war in Iraq with no spare troops to do anything
else anywhere else, and thus decided to take the hit and look incompetent
regarding Intel on the WMDs instead of looking incompetent on not been able to
get the existing WMDs.
As for the evidence..., the "yellow cake", the buried weapons, the
WMDs antidotes, the WMDs protective gear, the WMDs Training gear, etc, etc,
etc, is clear evidence that he was NOT an innocent victim in this war, and who
knows what else he had, what else he buried in those immense sand dunes, or
what else he sent to Syria...
The whole story will not be know for a long time, but as evidence shows he was
guilty as charge, and thus the 2003 Invasion was justified...problem was
Bush/Rumsfeld invasion was too slow and too small in troop numbers in order to
catch the WMDs before they were sent to Syria, and then too small for the post
invasion occupation that
was sure to follow the American military Iraqi invasion.
Maybe some day the real complete story of what happened in Iraq will come out
just like the real story of the Cuban Missile crisis came out almost 20 years
later.
(Luis T. Puig is a former US Navy Nuclear Submarine Force veteran, with two decades of service)
