Posted on 04/07/2003 3:10:49 PM PDT by MadIvan
The lies begin to be nailed
Allied desert boots tread the floors of Saddam Hussein’s palace compounds, crowds in Basra have reportedly stormed jails, and the trickle of intelligence is becoming a sizeable stream of information from captured Iraqi officers and Iraqis shedding their fear of speaking out. At the military training camp in Albu Mahawish, on the Euphrates between Karbala and al-Hilla, preliminary scientific tests yesterday indicated that the 101st Airborne Division may have uncovered a cache of sarin, tabun and the blister agent lewisite, in what would be the first concrete evidence that Saddam had indeed lied about his weapons of mass destruction.
It will, however, be some time before a coherent picture emerges of the secrets harboured by his totalitarian regime. This is in part because uncovering them is not yet the coalition’s priority. The closer to dissolution Saddam’s military, paramilitary and secret police apparatus appears, the harder US and British forces will press their advantage. And the closer dissolution comes, the more they will be able to count Iraqis among their assets. Senior officers in the regular Iraqi Army have, entirely voluntarily, begun to provide valuable information about Republican Guard positions, munitions dumps and intentions, and the paramilitary and financial assets controlled by the Baath party. Fissures are yawning not only between the regular Iraqi forces that Saddam has always distrusted, and the regime’s power enforcers, but within the ranks of these same enforcers. The Republican Guard has been thinned out not just by allied firepower, but by mass desertions.
Even so, tough fighting still lies ahead on what has become a multiplicity of fronts. The pursuit of military success necessarily comes first; only when formal resistance is largely subdued can the hunt for Saddam’s banned weapons begin in earnest.
Further suspect caches may turn up in the course of combat. They will have to be meticulously inspected before their content is confirmed. Wisely, the US Central Command has witheld comment on yesterday’s discovery of chemical-armed BM21 rockets until the further expert examination expected to be carried out today delivers its report.
The extent of Iraq’s resort to terrorist methods as a deliberate weapon of war is already becoming apparent, as is the regime’s use for that purpose of hundreds of fighters recruited from Sudan, Egypt, Syria and other neighbouring countries and sent to terrorist training sites at bases such as the one identified at the biological weapons research centre at Salman Pak. This evidence reinforces suspicions of Iraqi involvement with terrorism raised by the discovery by UN inspectors, back in the 1990s, of videos at Salman Pak showing armed men practising terrorist raids on aircraft.
These foreign mercenaries, to judge by those captured to date, are not “volunteers” who came to Iraq only after the start of the campaign. They are fully trained operatives who have been serving with Iraqi forces for some time. US Marines have also discovered bomb-making facilities, chemicals and mortars at a large training complex to the east of Baghdad operated by a faction of the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) headed by Abu Abbas. The PLF, which carried out the deadly terrorist attack on the Achille Lauro in 1985, officially renounced terrorism at the time of the 1993 Oslo accords; yet this camp had until very recently been active. For 12 years, Saddam has denied working with terrorists just as categorically as he has sworn that Iraq no longer possesses any category of banned weapons or the means to manufacture them. In a mere 18 days, one lie has been nailed; nailing the second is only a matter of time.
Regards, Ivan
ScaniaBoy
Message to the French: You loved a regime so despotic & dispicable & actually cheered as it killed its own people and hanged young children they killed from the lamposts in Basra, you supplied a terrorist with the means & will to manufacture & distribute weapons of mass destruction, you lied and schemed. YOU ARE NO BETTER THAN THE SCUM OF THE EARTH!
Saddam: Released From The Doctor 2 Weeks After Coalition Bombing
Regards, Ivan
WHEN PIGS FLY (alas!)
He said that because he KNOWS we will find the evidence, do you doubt it?
A big resounding NO.
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