SADDAM NEVER HAD WMD????

Saddam never had WMD? Below please find two articles that refute the idea that there were never any WMD in Iraq. Lately I have read silly things like, “Saddam never had WMD’s.” Let us not be fooled by revisionist history. These two articles speak for themselves...

BOSTON, MA (April 29, 1993) - For the first time ever, scientists have been able to prove the use of chemical weapons through the analysis of environmental residues taken years after such an attack occurred. In a development that could have far-reaching consequences for the enforcement of the chemical weapons treaty, soil samples taken from bomb craters near a Kurdish village in northern Iraq by a team of forensic scientists have been found to contain trace evidence of nerve gas. The samples were collected on June 10, 1992 by a forensic team assembled by the Boston-based Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the New York-based Middle East Watch (MEW), a division of Human Rights Watch (HRW). The samples were forwarded to the Chemical & Biological Defence Establishment (CBDE) of Great Britain's Ministry of Defence at Porton Down which analyzed them. Eyewitnesses have said that Iraqi warplanes dropped three clusters each of four bombs on the village of Birjinni on August 25, 1988. Observers recall seeing a plume of black, then yellowish smoke, followed by a not-unpleasant odor similar to fertilizer, and also a smell like rotten garlic. Shortly afterwards, villagers began to have trouble breathing, their eyes watered, their skin blistered, and many vomited--some of whom died. All of these symptoms are consistent with a poison gas attack."These scientific results prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Iraqi government has consistently lied to the world on denying that these attacks occurred," said PHR and HRW. http://www.phrusa.org/research/chemical_weapons/chemiraqgas2.html

Posted on Sun, Apr. 06, 2003 Troops, journalists undergo cleanup for nerve gas exposure By TOM LASSETERKnight Ridder Newspapers ALBU MUHAWISH, Iraq - U.S. soldiers evacuated an Iraqi military compound on Sunday after tests by a mobile laboratory confirmed evidence of sarin nerve gas. More than a dozen soldiers of the Army's 101st Airborne Division had been sent earlier for chemical weapons decontamination after they exhibited symptoms of possible exposure to nerve agents.The evacuation of dozens of soldiers Sunday night followed a day of tests for the nerve agent that came back positive, then negative. Additional tests Sunday night by an Army Fox mobile nuclear, biological and chemical detection laboratory confirmed the existence of sarin.Sgt. Todd Ruggles, a biochemical expert attached to the 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne said, "I was right" that chemical agents Iraq has denied having were present.In addition to the soldiers sent for decontamination, a Knight Ridder reporter, a CNN cameraman and two Iraqi prisoners of war also were hosed down with water and bleach.U.S. soldiers found the suspect chemicals at two sites: an agricultural warehouse containing 55-gallon chemical drums and a military compound, which soldiers had begun searching on Saturday. The soldiers also found hundreds of gas masks and chemical suits at the military complex, along with large numbers of mortar and artillery rounds.Chemical tests for nerve agents in the warehouse came back positive for so-called G-Series nerve agents, which include sarin and tabun, both of which Iraq has been known to possess. More than a dozen infantry soldiers who guarded the military compound Saturday night came down with symptoms consistent with exposure to very low levels of nerve agent, including vomiting, dizziness and skin blotches.A hand-held scanning device also indicated the soldiers had been exposed to a nerve agent. Two tests at the compound were negative, but further testing indicated sarin was present. http://cc.msnscache.com/cache.aspx?q=1981062252256âŒ©=en-US&FORM=CVRE2

To order a DVD with graphic proof of Saddam's crimes, visit http://www.iraqitruthproject.com/

The question is what was in all the 55 gallon drums in 2003. According to the article above, these initially tested positive for nerve agent, as did those who came into contact with them. The discussion I read where the one posting was in denial was actually at military.com of all places- some lib was questioning our GI's. A GI asked the questions, "Why was it labeled as nerve agent in the beginning, and as pesticide afterwards?" Also, "How many cockroaches can you have in the desert, anyway." I am not one for conspiracy theories, but there were chemicals there, in 1980, 1993, and 2003. Exactly what they were I do not know, but it appears that those who came in contact with them tested positive for nerve agent.

I can tell you from experience initial tests are often very inaccurate or non-conslusive.

As for what was in those 55 gallon drums in 2003? - The fact is they weren't drums and drums of end-product WMDs I can assure you. We would have touted those out ASAP if that turned out to be the case.

The World is safer because Saddam is not in power. The World is safer because of our GWOT - The world is safer because freedom and self-worth are spreading in Iraq - that really is the bottom-line and anyone who is "willing" to be intellectually honest has to admit it.

The other fact is on Sept 11th, al Qeade did not have WMD's....yet would anyone deny that they were a threat? (Of course not, they most certainly were a threat....just as Saddam was!).

But back to the WMD topic, the fact is we have conducted large, complex hex operations searching for WMDs or residuals of an active WMD program in Iraq (program from the late 90's till 2003)....we have yet to find evidence of any such active program. (though Saddam certainly had all the capabilities to start up an WMD program on short notice).

Operation Sarindar, from KGB defector

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=10111

"As a former Romanian spy chief who used to take orders from the Soviet KGB, it is perfectly obvious to me that Russia is behind the evanescence of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. After all, Russia helped Saddam get his hands on them in the first place. The Soviet Union and all its bloc states always had a standard operating procedure for deep sixing weapons of mass destruction — in Romanian it was codenamed "Sarindar, meaning "emergency exit." I implemented it in Libya. It was for ridding Third World despots of all trace of their chemical weapons if the Western imperialists ever got near them. We wanted to make sure they would never be traced back to us, and we also wanted to frustrate the West by not giving them anything they could make propaganda with.

All chemical weapons were to be immediately burned or buried deep at sea. Technological documentation, however, would be preserved in microfiche buried in waterproof containers for future reconstruction. Chemical weapons, especially those produced in Third World countries, which lack sophisticated production facilities, often do not retain lethal properties after a few months on the shelf and are routinely dumped anyway. And all chemical weapons plants had a civilian cover making detection difficult, regardless of the circumstances.

The plan included an elaborate propaganda routine. Anyone accusing Moammar Gadhafi of possessing chemical weapons would be ridiculed. Lies, all lies! Come to Libya and see! Our Western left-wing organizations, like the World Peace Council, existed for sole purpose of spreading the propaganda we gave them. These very same groups bray the exact same themes to this day. We always relied on their expertise at organizing large street demonstrations in Western Europe over America's "war-mongering" whenever we wanted to distract world attention from the crimes of the vicious regimes we sponsored.

Iraq, in my view, had its own "Sarindar" plan in effect direct from Moscow. It certainly had one in the past. Nicolae Ceausescu told me so, and he heard it from Leonid Brezhnev. KGB chairman Yury Andropov, and later, Gen. Yevgeny Primakov, told me so, too. In the late 1970s, Gen. Primakov ran Saddam's weapons programs. After that, as you may recall, he was promoted to head of the Soviet foreign intelligence service in 1990, to Russia's minister of foreign affairs in 1996, and in 1998, to prime minister. What you may not know is that Primakov hates Israel and has always championed Arab radicalism. He was a personal friend of Saddam's and has repeatedly visited Baghdad after 1991, quietly helping Saddam play his game of hide-and-seek.

The Soviet bloc not only sold Saddam its WMDs, but it showed them how to make them "disappear." Russia is still at it. Primakov was in Baghdad from December until a couple of days before the war, along with a team of Russian military experts led by two of Russia's topnotch "retired"generals: Vladislav Achalov, a former deputy defense minister, and Igor Maltsev, a former air defense chief of staff. They were all there receiving honorary medals from the Iraqi defense minister. They clearly were not there to give Saddam military advice for the upcoming war—Saddam's Katyusha launchers were of World War II vintage, and his T-72 tanks, BMP-1 fighting vehicles and MiG fighter planes were all obviously useless against America. "I did not fly to Baghdad to drink coffee," was what Gen. Achalov told the media afterward. They were there orchestrating Iraq's "Sarindar" plan.

The U.S. military in fact, has already found the only thing that would have been allowed to survive under the classic Soviet "Sarindar" plan to liquidate weapons arsenals in the event of defeat in war — the technological documents showing how to reproduce weapons stocks in just a few weeks.

Such a plan has undoubtedly been in place since August 1995 — when Saddam's son-in-law, Gen. Hussein Kamel, who ran Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological programs for 10 years, defected to Jordan. That August, UNSCOM and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors searched a chicken farm owned by Kamel's family and found more than one hundred metal trunks and boxes containing documentation dealing with all categories of weapons, including nuclear. Caught red-handed, Iraq at last admitted to its "extensive biological warfare program, including weaponization," issued a "Full, Final and Complete Disclosure Report" and turned over documents about the nerve agent VX and nuclear weapons.

Saddam then lured Gen. Kamel back, pretending to pardon his defection. Three days later, Kamel and over 40 relatives, including women and children, were murdered, in what the official Iraqi press described as a "spontaneous administration of tribal justice." After sending that message to his cowed, miserable people, Saddam then made a show of cooperation with UN inspection, since Kamel had just compromised all his programs, anyway. In November 1995, he issued a second "Full, Final and Complete Disclosure" as to his supposedly non-existent missile programs. That very same month, Jordan intercepted a large shipment of high-grade missile components destined for Iraq. UNSCOM soon fished similar missile components out of the Tigris River, again refuting Saddam's spluttering denials. In June 1996, Saddam slammed the door shut to UNSCOM's inspection of any "concealment mechanisms." On Aug. 5, 1998, halted cooperation with UNSCOM and the IAEA completely, and they withdrew on Dec. 16, 1998. Saddam had another four years to develop and hide his weapons of mass destruction without any annoying, prying eyes. U.N. Security Council resolutions 1115, (June 21, 1997), 1137 (Nov. 12, 1997), and 1194 (Sept. 9, 1998) were issued condemning Iraq—ineffectual words that had no effect. In 2002, under the pressure of a huge U.S. military buildup by a new U.S. administration, Saddam made yet another "Full, Final and Complete Disclosure," which was found to contain "false statements" and to constitute another "material breach" of U.N. and IAEA inspection and of paragraphs eight to 13 of resolution 687 (1991).

It was just a few days after this last "Disclosure," after a decade of intervening with the U.N. and the rest of the world on Iraq's behalf, that Gen. Primakov and his team of military experts landed in Baghdad — even though, with 200,000 U.S. troops at the border, war was imminent, and Moscow could no longer save Saddam Hussein. Gen. Primakov was undoubtedly cleaning up the loose ends of the "Sarindar" plan and assuring Saddam that Moscow would rebuild his weapons of mass destruction after the storm subsided for a good price."

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