Posted on 01/29/2004 6:40:30 AM PST by areafiftyone
(Updates with comments on Saddam's trial, Iraq's unity)
By Anna Mudeva
SOFIA, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Iraq's foreign minister said on Thursday Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, which inspectors have failed to find, were carefully hidden but Hoshiyar Zebari said he was confident they could be discovered.
"I have every belief that some of these weapons could be found as we move forward," Zebari, an Iraqi Kurd, told a news conference in Sofia. "They have been hidden in certain areas. The system of hiding was very sophisticated."
The United States and Britain cited Iraq's possession of chemical and biological arms as their main reason for invading the country last March and toppling Saddam. But no such weapons have so far come to light despite intensive searches.
Former chief U.S. weapons hunter David Kay said on Wednesday "we were almost all wrong" about the issue and it was "highly unlikely that there were large stockpiles of deployed militarised chemical and biological weapons" in Iraq.
But Zebari, on a visit to Bulgaria, said: "We as Iraqis have seen Saddam Hussein develop, manufacture and use these weapons of mass destruction against us. He hasn't denied that."
Zebari was apparently referring to the use of chemical weapons by Saddam's forces against Iraqi Kurdish villages in the late 1980s.
He reiterated the position of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council that Saddam, accused of sending thousands of Iraqis to mass graves, should be tried by an Iraqi court.
The former Iraqi president, who was given prisoner of war status, was captured in mid-December near his home town of Tikrit, having evaded U.S. forces since the American military launched its war in Iraq with a March 20 attack targeting him.
Zebari said Saddam's trial should be fair and transparent because it would be a test for Iraq's new rulers to prove their adherence to the supremacy of law.
TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY
Asked to comment on Turkey's fears Iraqi Kurds might seek a breakaway state, Zebari said there were no plans to divide Iraq.
"We have proved over the last nine months that all the Iraqis from the North to the South are committed to the national unity...No group, no party has any plans to undermine Iraq's unity or territorial integrity," he said.
U.S. President George W. Bush said on Wednesday he was also committed to a "territorially intact" Iraq.
Turkish officials have been concerned Iraqi Kurds might press for an independent state, which could boost independence claims by Turkey's own restive Kurdish minority.
The Kurds, who fought with the United States to topple Saddam, are one of Iraq's best organised ethnic groups after enjoying U.S-protected autonomy since the 1991 Gulf War. They have presented a plan to the Iraqi Governing Council that grants significant autonomy to the Kurdish region.
Zebari did not rule out the federalisation of Iraq as long as it did not violate territorial unity and added only the Iraqi people could choose the country's future political system.
The sooner we get behind this, take our lumps and move on, the better. Bush can focus on Saddam's capture and the liberation of 26 million people... If he waits until closer to the election, it'll be a slow trickle that just won't go away, and in the end, it could seriously destroy his credibility.
Here's just a brief excerpt:
What have we found and what have we not found in the first 3 months of our work?
We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN. Let me just give you a few examples of these concealment efforts, some of which I will elaborate on later:
A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.
A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.
Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons...
Read the entire report. It's fascinating, and really makes many of the "no WMDs" arguments laughable. I did notice one thing I'd forgotten over the months. In his Oct 03 report, Kay said this:
Any actual WMD weapons or material is likely to be small in relation to the total conventional armaments footprint and difficult to near impossible to identify with normal search procedures. It is important to keep in mind that even the bulkiest materials we are searching for, in the quantities we would expect to find, can be concealed in spaces not much larger than a two car garage;
In other words, we do not expect to find any large stockpiles of WMDs. But a few months later it's suddenly a huge issue. LOL
WMD was never the sole reason for taking action, but he keeps allowing the left to define these issues. They should be shouting from the rooftops what David Kay had to say about our action being justified to counter the headlines pointing out that no WMDs have been found.
Has everyone forgotten the reports of just a few months ago? We have FOUND the facilities and underground laboratories. We have FOUND hundreds of people to interview. We have FOUND documentation of the programs.
Now it's just the STASH we are looking for. The actual SUPPLIES. How has everyone forgotten so quickly? I just don't understand!
They are using suicide attacks so why the need for WMD training and protection? Just open the canister and let it rip.
Besides, the low level insurgients that are left would not have been told where the WMD's have been taken, hidden or whatever.
Saddams second in command, the red headed guy, is running the insurgency. If anyone that's not dead or in prison knows dont you think its Aldouri or whatever his name?
Get out there and show us how it's done, friend!
Or better yet, read Kay's interim report and then retract your post.
Didn't they find just about exactly that amount in one scientist's refrigerator back in August or so?
Read Kay's report. Plenty of WMD personnel have talked.
Paul Begala was on Don Imus show this morning. Barf. The latest DNC talking points: Democrats do not hate Bush. They do not think it was a war for oil or Halliburton. Bush may have had good intentions, and we all believed Saddam did have WMDs. But Bush "lied". He knew, or should have known, Saddam was no threat.We didn't have to do anything, and now 500 soldiers are dead. For nothing.
Minus the gratuitious swipes, this is more or less equivalent to what I believe the honest anti-war right believes.
When you add up Iraq, I don't see how anyone who believes those points (and isn't just posturing politically) can fail to take into account the justness and strategic value of having accomplished this invasion. The shadowy ins and outs of the WMDs story may become clear in time. Don't hold your breath for the big revelation.
All he would have to do is get a bunch of prisoners to construct and/or modify the hiding place. and load it with the WMD. Then execute them.
Then, execute all the scientists and workmen that could possible know their whereabouts.
Or do you suggest Saddam Hussein is above that?
LOL! Good point! They must be on the "evil genius" side of the "evil genius/gibbering idiot" Bush caricature today.
If Hitler hadn't been such a racist, refusing to believe in Einsteins "Jewish Mathematics" he may very well have developed 'the bomb' and the world would be a very different place today.
L
Sorry, but that's just wrong. That was Heisenberg's cover story after the fact, but he was lying, as the Farm Hall transcripts amply show.
The Nazi bomb scientists were working very seriously to produce such weapons for Hitler (or at least, to lay the groundwork for such weapons). Their enterprise was doomed to failure, however, because the scale of the operation was fell far short of what was needed, and because Heisenberg had made some key physics errors which made their approach unworkable.
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