Posted on 12/06/2003 6:35:16 PM PST by RaceBannon
Iraqi army chief backs WMD claim
From correspondents in London
December 7, 2003
AN Iraqi officer has identified himself as the source for a British claim about Saddam Hussein's weapons that sparked a controversy marked by the death of a British government arms expert.
The Sunday Telegraph said Lt Col al-Dabbagh identified himself as the source for the British government's assertion that Iraq could have deployed chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of a decision to do so. The paper gave the officer's surname only, citing fears for his safety if he was fully identified.
Prime Minister Tony Blair's office declined comment on the newspaper report, which featured in early editions published late Saturday.
"We're not prepared to comment but we urge all those involved to provide the Iraq Survey Group with whatever information they believe they have," a spokeswoman for Mr Blair's office said late Saturday. The ISG is the coalition body searching for Saddam's alleged chemical or biological weapons.
No one was available at the Foreign Office to comment on aspects of the newspaper report regarding the MI6 foreign intelligence agency, which supplied information on Iraqi weapons before the war.
Mr Kelly's death prompted a judicial inquiry that scrutinized the workings of Mr Blair's government and its use of intelligence in the build-up to war. The senior judge who headed the inquiry, Lord Hutton, is expected to issue his report early next year.
The Sunday Telegraph said Col al-Dabbagh was the former head of an Iraqi air defence unit in the country's western desert. It reported that he had spied for the Iraqi National Accord, a London-based exile group, and provided reports to British intelligence from early 2002 on Saddam's plans to deploy weapons of mass destruction.
Col Al-Dabbagh said cases containing weapons of mass destruction warheads were delivered to front-line units, including his own, in late 2002, the paper reported. He didn't know whether the warheads were chemical or biological but said they were designed to be launched by hand-held rocket-propelled grenades.
The government's September dossier said "Iraq's military forces are able to use chemical and biological weapons, with command, control and logistical arrangements in place. The Iraqi military are able to deploy these weapons within 45 minutes of a decision to do so."
The head of the MI6 spy agency, Sir Richard Dearlove, told the inquiry into Kelly's death that the 45-minute warning in the dossier came from an "established and reliable source," quoting a senior Iraqi military officer who was in a position to know this information.
The Sunday Telegraph said al-Dabbagh believed he was the source for that claim.
"I am the one responsible for providing this information," he was quoted as saying. "It is 100 per cent accurate.
"Forget 45 minutes, we could have fired these within half an hour," Col al-Dabbagh added. He said the weapons were not used because most of the Iraqi army did not want to fight for Saddam.
The newspaper said Col al-Dabbagh works as an adviser to the Iraqi Governing Council, and added that he has received death threats from Saddam loyalists.
It reported that Iyad Allawi, the head of the Iraqi National Accord and a prominent council member, confirmed he had passed information from Col al-Dabbagh on Saddam's weapons to British and American intelligence officials in the spring and summer of 2002.
The Associated Press
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Bada Boom!
Ok, where are they??!!
He said as soon as they know Saddam is dead there will be those who will tell where they are.
Pehaps Fox is simply too busy 24/7 detailing for its viewers [I'm becoming less and less of one] every insipid second about that perv Michael Jackson to bother covering a blockbuster of a story supporting Bush's claims about Iraqi WMDs, while Drudge sees fit to headline an idiotic story about women lopping off their toes for the sake of vanity.
I simply cannot understand why this story seems to be spiked by every news service except The Telegraph, NBC and AP!
U.S. deploys 20,000 troops near Syrian border
WORLD TRIBUNE.COM ^ | Wednesday, November 19, 2003
The United States has deployed 20,000 troops along the Syrian border after Syria failed to stop militants from crossing into Iraq.
As late as October, U.S. officials said hundreds of Islamic insurgents were crossing into Iraqi from Syria. They said Syrian authorities had failed to respond to U.S. appeals to stop the flow of insurgents.
U.S. military officials said the U.S. troop presence was bolstered beginning in September and has resulted in a significant drop in infiltration from Syria. The U.S. troops are based in the Iraqi province of Anbar, Middle East Newsline reported.
Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, said the military completed a 200 percent increase in U.S. troops at Anbar. Swannack told a briefing in Baghdad on Tuesday that the increased deployment was also meant to stop infiltration from other Iraqi neighbors, such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia. But the U.S. presence has not halted the flow of insurgents from Syria. On Monday, the U.S. military said six suspected insurgents were captured near the Syrian border. One of them was later killed when he tried to attack a guard.
Swannack said the U.S. troop presence in Anbar has resulted in reducing the flow of insurgents from Syria. He said Islamic insurgents have launched attacks against the U.S. force near the 500-kilometer Syrian border. But he called the attacks ineffective.
"We are not fighting foreign fighters coming across the border in significant numbers," Swannack said. "We are fighting mostly former regime locals
Seems to be the most likely scenario.
This really smells. A WMD "warhead" on an RPG??? What's the range on an RPG, 500 meters? Seems as useful as a nuclear hand grenade! Plus, Saddam would have given at least some of these weapons to the Fedayeen and they certainly wouldn't hesitate to use them.
I'm beginning to think that Saddam really didn't have WMDs. He definitely didn't have any complete weapons or they would have been used, either in the war or by the guerrillas. I also wonder about the claims that Saddam sent his WMDs to Syria. Why would he do that? So they wouldn't be found? So what, he knew we would take him out regardless. Now, after all this time, the only thing that makes sense to me is that Saddam did not have any usable WMDs.
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