Posted on 10/22/2003 1:29:46 PM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
NewsMax has obtained exclusive photographs proving that Iraq violated a U.N. Security Council ban on importing weapons. The photographs show a wide variety of imported weapons with production dates as recent as 2001.
A U.S. military inspection team that visited an Iraqi air force munitions site in late September 2003 took the photographs. The site, located in the Suni triangle near Baghdad, has at least 13 concrete bunkers filled with missiles, bombs and bomb-fusing devices.
U.S. military teams uncovered several examples of U.N. violations, including a number of French bomb fuses with a production date of "2001-Sep-5."
The French-made aerial bomb fuses had documentation noting that the devices were produced in 2001. The French bomb fuses were stored in a box stating the manufacture date was 1985 in an apparent effort to mislead U.N. and U.S. inspectors.
Cluster Bombs
Another series of photos shows that U.S. inspection teams discovered a cache of South African CB470 cluster bombs. According to the declaration made in November 2002 by Saddam Hussein, Iraq had no such weapons.
Saddam denied that he had cluster bombs but U.S. State Department photos prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom showed that Iraqi Air Force engineers were working on modifying conventional cluster bombs into chemical weapons.
Cluster bombs carry a large number of "bomblets" or "sub-munitions," small, softball-sized grenades that separate from the main bomb unit. The falling bomblets then shower a large area with explosions.
Cluster bomb technology can be adapted to chemical or biological warfare by replacing the conventional explosive submunitions with biotoxin-armed bomblets.
Russian Bombs
Another example was a large quantity of KMG-U cluster bomb dispensers developed in Russia by the Spetztekhnika Vympel NPO in Moscow and manufactured by Bazalt State Research and Production Enterprise.
The Iraqi KMG-U dispensers were armed with the PTAB2.5 anti-tank bomblets and AO2.5 bomblets. According to the Russian manufacturer, the KMG-U dispenser and submunitions were not available for export until 1993. However, there are no reported export sales.
The U.S. teams also found fully active Russian-made AA-8 air-to-air missiles, French-made Durandal anti-runway rocket bombs, Russian anti-personnel cluster bomblets and huge quantities of unguided rockets. Many of the munitions were piled into large heaps or simply scattered over the open countryside.
The condition of the find illustrates the huge task faced by U.S. forces as they try to disarm Iraq. Saddam loyalists could easily obtain and use the munitions found lying in the open desert against American forces.
Moreover, the discrepancies between documentation, box markings and actual items found show that an intentional effort was made by Iraqi troops to mislead U.N. inspection teams. In some cases false shipping documents written in English were discovered with the weapons.
In addition, the effort to find chemical or biological weapons is being hampered by the vast quantity of conventional munitions stored in dangerous conditions. The Iraqi army was well-known for storing chemical weapons with its conventional explosives.
The French-made aerial bomb fuses had documentation noting that the devices were produced in 2001. The French bomb fuses were stored in a box stating the manufacture date was 1985 in an apparent effort to mislead U.N. and U.S. inspectors.
the French our friends would never mislead the U.S. /sarcasm
But of course! Ir will surely be the lead story on all the evening news.
And this guy will be leading the pack, right? 
Or an expiration date.
-Dan Blather
Today, rogue military WMD sleuths took photographs of what they claim are weaponry banned for Iraqi purchase by U.N. sanctions. It is alleged that the weaponry was manufactured in France in 2001. The French Ambassador to the U.N. has previously assured ABC that no such banned weapon sales have occurred. It appears that Mister Bush's sleuths have once again tripped the alert over inconclusive findings.
President Clinton, when contacted concerning this latest failure of the Bush administration, seemed to hint that Mister Bush will eventually produce WMDs for inspection but that such evidence should be viewed in the light of how pressing is his responsibility to produce the evidence of why he took this nation to war in Iraq.
Senator Tom Daschle could not be reached for comment, but House leader, Nancy Pelosi, when asked about these latest controversial photos, promised that the Democratic Party would hold the administration to the highest standards of proof. Senator Kennedy refused to acknowledge the questionable photographs could be vital evidence since the French government has repudiated the possibility that they have traded weapons to Iraq in the recent past.
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