Posted on 12/06/2003 4:21:49 PM PST by Happy2BMe
Just damn.
If you want on the new list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...
To reasonable people, yes. To deomcrat, no.
If I were Dubya, I'd bring him on over for a cup of Turkish coffee and a sit down with a congressional interview.
In your face - UN, France, Germany, Russia, and the entire Democrap party!
I want it to be true,but the facts on the ground show no evidence of this. We find billions of dollars and incredible amounts of hidden munitions but no WMD.
There are plenty of captured Iraqui higher-ups who would lead us to WMD knowing they could benefit monetarily and freedom wise for giving us that info.
People whose family members were killed by Saadam's men would rat them out in a heartbeat. -Tom
We shall see.
If one apple falls out of the tree, it just takes a little shaking to get a whole bushel.
Maybe the apples are just now getting ripe enough to come down.
By Andrew Clennell
07 December 2003
Independent (UK)
An Iraqi colonel said yesterday that he was the source of the Government's "dodgy dossier" claim that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.
Lieutenant-Colonel al-Dabbagh, who said he was the head of an Iraqi air defence unit in the desert, outed himself. But he explained that the weapons he was talking about were battlefield weapons to be fired from rocket-propelled grenades, and were not for use in missiles.
"They arrived in boxes marked 'Made in Iraq' and looked like something you fired with a rocket-propelled grenade," Col al-Dabbagh told The Sunday Telegraph.
"They were either chemical or biological weapons; I don't know which, because only the Fedayeen and the Special Republican Guard were allowed to use them. All I know is we were told that when we used these weapons we had to wear gas masks."
When shown the information about the 45-minute claim in the Iraq WMD dossier issued by the Government in September 2002, he said: "I am the one responsible for providing this. Forget 45 minutes, we could have fired these within half an hour."
The 45-minute claim led to the death of scientist Dr David Kelly, after BBC journalist -Andrew Gilligan reported a source telling him the dossier was "sexed up" by Downing Street and that the 45-minute claim was included against MI6's wishes.
Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence, told the Hutton inquiry into Dr Kelly's death on 22 September that he knew the claim in the dossier referred to battlefield weapons only.
Andrew Caldecott QC, for the BBC, then asked: "A number of newspapers had banner headlines suggesting this [the 45-minute claim] related to strategic missiles. Why was no corrective statement issued for the benefit of the public?" Mr Hoon replied: "I don't know."
Col al-Dabbagh, who was described as an advisor to the Iraqi Governing Council, said he was not prepared to release his first name for safety reasons. But he said he was willing to give evidence to the Hutton inquiry. British intelligence previously said it relied on a single senior officer from the Iraqi military for the WMD claim.
A Downing Street spokesman would not confirm or deny last night whether Col al-Dabbagh was the source of the 45-minute claim.
However, Col al-Dabbagh doubted Saddam developed missiles that could carry WMD and hit targets such as Israel or Britain's Cyprus military bases.
Col al-Dabbagh said he had no idea what became of the weapons he was describing. He believed the weapons would not be found until Saddam was caught or killed, as people would then feel freer to speak about them.
Mohammed Atta and Osama Bin Laden delivered 80,000 pounds of flaming jet fuel into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Quibbling over, or minimizing, the ragheads' capability to use the weapons they possess is rather silly.
"They were either chemical or biological weapons; I don't know which, because only the Fedayeen and the Special Republican Guard were allowed to use them. All I know is we were told that when we used these weapons we had to wear gas masks."
This is not proof. It is evidence he was trying to convince his troops he had capability, but it is not truth. Saddam could of been deceiving his own regulars.
At this point in time, I think the statements do need to be backed up wit physical evidence.
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