Posted on 02/22/2006 11:40:16 AM PST by pissant
WASHINGTON - Ever since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Bush administration has come under heavy criticism for its inability to find Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
Now some experts are saying that those WMDs did exist, but that they are not in Iraq anymore.
The 2006 Intelligence Summit, a three-day event held this weekend outside Washington, D.C., featured a who's-who of counter-terrorism and national security experts. One of them, Bill Tierney, worked as a U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq.
On Saturday, he provided translations of tapes featuring Hussein and other high-ranking Iraqi officials discussing Iraq’s secret WMD program.
In one of the tapes, Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, said that a biological weapons attack would be the easiest to arrange, and that "anyone could do it. They wouldn't finger us." In another tape, recorded in 2000, an aide tells Hussein that a factory had been built to produce plasma. Plasma is used in making nuclear weapons.
The tapes were recorded during the mid-1990s and later, showing, Tierney says, that despite the damage inflicted on his regime by Operation Desert Storm and U.N. sanctions, Hussein continued to pursue an illicit WMD program, with a little help from his friends.
“Saddam and Tariq Aziz are on tape talking about France and Russia helping them. C'mon, it's time to stop being the world's sucker,” Tierney remarked.
According to experts at the summit, Russia not only helped Iraq build its wmd capabilities, it even helped Saddam dispose of them. Jack Shaw, a former top Pentagon official who tracked Iraq's weapons programs, revealed for the first time his view that Russian Special Forces Units helped move Iraq's wmds to Syria and Lebanon, prior to the U.S. invasion in 2003.
Shaw said, “The short answer to the question of where the WMDs Saddam bought from the Russians went, was that they went to Syria and Lebanon, along with the most powerful explosives in Saddam's arsenal.”
They were moved by Russian Spetsnaz units, out of uniform, which were specifically sent to Iraq to move the weaponry and eradicate any evidence of its existence.
Yossef Bodansky agrees. Bodansky is the former director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism, and author of The Secret History of the Iraq War.
“The major case where the Russians were involved was the evacuation of the forces--the entire Iraqi arsenal,” said Bodansky, “not just WMD, but also artillery pieces, tanks, troops, etc., that were arrayed for the defense of Baghdad, once Saddam Hussein realized that the game was all over.”
Bodansky says that the Bush administration knows that Hussein's WMDs are in Syria but doesn't want to open another front in the war on terror. Still, why not use this information to answer Howard Dean and other critics, who insist that Hussein had no WMDs?
Retired General Thomas McInerney, a Fox News military analyst, says that one reason could be that the administration wants Russia's help in the war on terror.
McInerney said, “Why would you put your quote ‘allies’ in an awkward position in the war on terror? I think that's probably why this has not been pursued.”
From a political point of view, it is probably a mistake. From a diplomatic point of view and going forward, it probably is not.
One expert told CBN News that thousands of more hours of Hussein's secret tapes may still be unaccounted for. And with them, perhaps, the answer to what really happened to Iraq's elusive WMDs.
Ping aling.
The WMD's are in Syria or Lebanon. We know it, the Russians know it the Syrians know it. They are buried and accounted for. Because it is easier to have them where we can monitor them instead of the potential for Saddam to give them to terrorists to use worldwide.
We knew the UN was worthless with monitoring Saddams WMD's. Politically it was irrelevant to Bush because Americans who understand know that Saddam had ties to terrorist groups. Plus Bush knows that the minute he says, "we found the WMD", the RATs are going to have a field day scaring Americans by saying, "how do we know we have them all?"
Actually, many of us were saying this at the time.
Remember the mysterious Iraqi cargo ships wandering around the Persian Gulf during Operation Iraqi Freedom?
it gets what it deserves. I don't hear too many people piping the "Bush Lied" mantra these days, not since Cindy Sheehan pretty much made that phrase something of a registered trademark.
In case we bomb Syria, having them hidden in the Presidential Palace would be a good thing.
But not Dubai. Definitely not Dubai.
What happened to those ships. It was a big story for like 2 days, then poof, it was gone.
Lets hope it comes out right before the election. Lots of liberals committed themselves. Would be very entertaining to see them all try to backtrack.
> In another tape, recorded in 2000, an aide tells Hussein that a factory had been built to produce plasma. Plasma is used in making nuclear weapons.
Uhhh.... what?
Something ain't right here...
It was a report from the Intel conference, not Pat Robertson's editorial. As much as I am no fan of Pat, his publications reporting is more accurate than the MSM.
Thanks Peach! I was just going through the PP presentation at the Intelligence Summit site and Saddam and Tariq were talking about clearing Brazil from helping them "Brazil? We have nothing to do with them"... it sounds like it wasn't just France and Russia that were helping the Iraqis.
Scary stuff. Especially the part where Saddam says "it's too bad (conflict ended?) ... they would've found (the missiles) on the Israeli heads".
She should also trademark her image of herself on her knees in fron of Hugo Chavez.
It is sad but to believe that the president of the United States did not lie, makes you a kook by most MSM standards.
Lotsa liberals will need to be committed!
Is that like Dr. Evil's Megma?
Thank you so much for your attention to this, cgk. I heard something about Brazil with regard to this matter the other day and can't remember what it was.
Something about Brazil going to become a nuclear power soon, I think.
Maybe so. Or maybe you have not been paying attention to the other multitude of stories regarding the same subject.
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