Posted on 10/27/2004 7:58:47 PM PDT by MichaelTN04
Edited on 10/27/2004 10:56:58 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Just saw on MSNBC Scarborough Country, Pat Buchanan said that the Wash Times is set to report that Russian Troops helped move the explosives and weapons to Syria before the invasion...
*******Washington Times Link**********
Russia tied to Iraq's missing arms
No. Bush won't comment on the Russia part of the revelation. This is big enough to take care of itself without a direct comment from Bush. This is the best October surprise the Republi.....oh? Thats right the Democrats put it out. HEHEHEHEHEHE
I don't know .... I'm not feeling very charitable these days
I wouldn't sweat that so much. Bill Gertz is talking to a deputy undersecretary, not some loon with a conspriacy website. Bill Gertz is a pro. and I am sure he has vetted this guy. Any slow reaction from the Pentagon only means they are waiting to put together an 'official' response.
I'm guessing the beginning of this Kerry fiasco was not planned by the Bush campaign, but as Bush began to break ahead in the polls and Kerry began to latch on to anything to grab headlines and a soundbyte, this issue fell into their laps and they could not simply let it be. I don't think Rove is that brilliant, but then again, after this, who can doubt him.
Rather, I think it was like a perfect storm. Unplanned, but easily manipulated to expose a Kerry weakness.
So now the question becomes, how to play to maximum advantage? Well, here is something to consider. Two of Kerry's strongest allies, CBS and the NYTs, have sold their soul for this story. They have themselves so far out on the gangplank that they can't walk backwards without tripping over this information. Now, the very "news" agencies that were trying to give the election to Kerry are going to be forced to report the story that is going to seal his fate. To quote my favorite actor, Jim Carrey, "B E A Utiful!"
i remember the russian diplomats coming under fire in iraq in the early stages of the war.....sure this as a part of this.....also the fire on the upper floor of the ministry building in bagdad.
Wouldn't be a hoot....if Putin has made a deal for this to be turned over, especially after the school disaster in Russia.
I also still beleive that Libya's nuclear parts where from IRAQ....as they looked like they were in crates instead of in an underground facility.
KERRY NEEDS TO KEEP TALKING ABOUT THE TRUTH......
MR. KERRY YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!!!!!
If the Times is talking to the locals in that area, it may be only a matter of time for one of their reporters to be shown in some cage, begging for his/her life.
Check out what Alaa has to say about the people in that area.
http://messopotamian.blogspot.com/
If the Russians moved tons and tons of munitions out of Iraq why not WMD also?
Yes, I think that is the case.
BBC has indicated Putin will issue a statement. Plus the Undersecretary of State has documentation.
They just never listen do they?
I like the way you think. Ever consider going into politics?
ABC News has taken your advice calling this WMDs.
And regular Russian troops have helped the Chechens for a nominal fee, of course.
Putin will issue a statement? this I've got to hear. is he going to mention where he delivered them to in Syria?
Here it is:
Russia tied to Iraq's missing arms
Russia tied to Iraq's missing arms
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned.
John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, "almost certainly" removed the high-explosive material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad.
"The Russians brought in, just before the war got started, a whole series of military units," Mr. Shaw said. "Their main job was to shred all evidence of any of the contractual arrangements they had with the Iraqis. The others were transportation units."
Mr. Shaw, who was in charge of cataloguing the tons of conventional arms provided to Iraq by foreign suppliers, said he recently obtained reliable information on the arms-dispersal program from two European intelligence services that have detailed knowledge of the Russian-Iraqi weapons collaboration.
Most of Saddam's most powerful arms were systematically separated from other arms like mortars, bombs and rockets, and sent to Syria and Lebanon, and possibly to Iran, he said.
The Russian involvement in helping disperse Saddam's weapons, including some 380 tons of RDX and HMX is still being investigated, Mr. Shaw said.
The RDX and HMX, which are used to manufacture high-explosive and nuclear weapons, are probably of Russian origin, he said.
Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita could not be reached for comment.
The disappearance of the material was reported in a letter Oct. 10 from the Iraqi government to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Disclosure of the missing explosives Monday in a New York Times story was used by the Democratic presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry, who accused the Bush administration of failing to secure the material.
Al-Qaqaa, a known Iraqi weapons site, was monitored closely, Mr. Shaw said.
"That was such a pivotal location, Number 1, that the mere fact of [special explosives] disappearing was impossible," Mr. Shaw said. "And Number 2, if the stuff disappeared, it had to have gone before we got there."
The Pentagon disclosed yesterday that the Al-Qaqaa facility was defended by Fedayeen Saddam, Special Republican Guard and other Iraqi military units during the conflict. U.S. forces defeated the defenders around April 3 and found the gates to the facility open, the Pentagon said in a statement yesterday.
A military unit in charge of searching for weapons, the Army's 75th Exploitation Task Force, then inspected Al-Qaqaa on May 8, May 11 and May 27, 2003, and found no high explosives that had been monitored in the past by the IAEA.
The Pentagon said there was no evidence of large-scale movement of explosives from the facility after April 6.
"The movement of 377 tons of heavy ordnance would have required dozens of heavy trucks and equipment moving along the same roadways as U.S. combat divisions occupied continually for weeks prior to and subsequent to the 3rd Infantry Division's arrival at the facility," the statement said.
The statement also said that the material may have been removed from the site by Saddam's regime.
According to the Pentagon, U.N. arms inspectors sealed the explosives at Al-Qaqaa in January 2003 and revisited the site in March and noted that the seals were not broken.
It is not known if the inspectors saw the explosives in March. The U.N. team left the country before the U.S.-led invasion began March 20, 2003.
A second defense official said documents on the Russian support to Iraq reveal that Saddam's government paid the Kremlin for the special forces to provide security for Iraq's Russian arms and to conduct counterintelligence activities designed to prevent U.S. and Western intelligence services from learning about the arms pipeline through Syria.
The Russian arms-removal program was initiated after Yevgeny Primakov, the former Russian intelligence chief, could not convince Saddam to give in to U.S. and Western demands, this official said.
A small portion of Iraq's 650,000 tons to 1 million tons of conventional arms that were found after the war were looted after the U.S.-led invasion, Mr. Shaw said. Russia was Iraq's largest foreign supplier of weaponry, he said.
However, the most important and useful arms and explosives appear to have been separated and moved out as part of carefully designed program. "The organized effort was done in advance of the conflict," Mr. Shaw said.
The Russian forces were tasked with moving special arms out of the country.
Mr. Shaw said foreign intelligence officials believe the Russians worked with Saddam's Mukhabarat intelligence service to separate out special weapons, including high explosives and other arms and related technology, from standard conventional arms spread out in some 200 arms depots.
The Russian weapons were then sent out of the country to Syria, and possibly Lebanon in Russian trucks, Mr. Shaw said.
Mr. Shaw said he believes that the withdrawal of Russian-made weapons and explosives from Iraq was part of plan by Saddam to set up a "redoubt" in Syria that could be used as a base for launching pro-Saddam insurgency operations in Iraq.
The Russian units were dispatched beginning in January 2003 and by March had destroyed hundreds of pages of documents on Russian arms supplies to Iraq while dispersing arms to Syria, the second official said.
Besides their own weapons, the Russians were supplying Saddam with arms made in Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria and other Eastern European nations, he said.
"Whatever was not buried was put on lorries and sent to the Syrian border," the defense official said.
Documents reviewed by the official included itineraries of military units involved in the truck shipments to Syria. The materials outlined in the documents included missile components, MiG jet parts, tank parts and chemicals used to make chemical weapons, the official said.
The director of the Iraqi government front company known as the Al Bashair Trading Co. fled to Syria, where he is in charge of monitoring arms holdings and funding Iraqi insurgent activities, the official said.
Also, an Arabic-language report obtained by U.S. intelligence disclosed the extent of Russian armaments. The 26-page report was written by Abdul Tawab Mullah al Huwaysh, Saddam's minister of military industrialization, who was captured by U.S. forces May 2, 2003.
The Russian "spetsnaz" or special-operations forces were under the GRU military intelligence service and organized large commercial truck convoys for the weapons removal, the official said.
Regarding the explosives, the new Iraqi government reported that 194.7 metric tons of HMX, or high-melting-point explosive, and 141.2 metric tons of RDX, or rapid-detonation explosive, and 5.8 metric tons of PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate, were missing.
The material is used in nuclear weapons and also in making military "plastic" high explosive.
Defense officials said the Russians can provide information on what happened to the Iraqi weapons and explosives that were transported out of the country. Officials believe the Russians also can explain what happened to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs.
While the UN was stalling us, I knew Sadam was probably getting rid of his weapons. I remember thinking why are these countries holding us back? Now we know and Kerry has stepped in it running with the phony story from his pals at the UN.
Saddam not only owed Russia billions from loans, he had signed contracts with some Russian companies to manage some of the Iraqi oilfields. In the case of Russia, Oil for Food was small potatoes.
Wake up you people. Lots of things are reported in the Washington Times, or on Fox News, and the rest of MSM ignores it. They will ignore this as well.
Face it, we are not just fighting the RATs, we are fighting ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, the NY Times, Washington Post, et al. THEY WON'T REPORT IT.
And the sheep will never hear of it.
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