IRAQ MINISTER SAYS SADDAM WMD CAREFULLY HIDDEN

Reuters ^ | 1/29/04

[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.

[Marysecretary]

The word "heavy water" comes to mind. Is that it?

[RetiredArmy]

Naw, you had it right the first time. It is "show."

[cookcounty]

"Are chemical and biological weapons something that can be disposed of easily? "

Bio-weapons are extremely easy to dispose of ---just throw them in the back yard garbage fire, which is what the Iraqis do every day with their garbage anyway ---your next door neighbor could talk to you over the fence while you do it and have no idea what you're up to.

[Solson]

And there is plenty of other supporting evidence available to back up those assertions.

No, there is not...at least right now. There is evidence to support the fact that, at one time, they had stockpiles. They seemingly no longer have them. And we have nothing to show what might have happened to them.

[Marysecretary]

Didn't his wife and children get asylum in Syria?

[Atlantic Friend]

It is a historical fact that Iraq used mustard gas against its own citizens and against the Iranians from 1980 to 1988.

It is also a historical fact that the Coalition that defeated Iraq in 1991 put the emphasis on the destruction of such weapons. Ammo stockpiles were dynamited after Desert Storm, among which there probably were chem warheads, judging by the number of Coalition troops that filed complaints about their being exposed to strange fumes from these ammo depots destructions.

The question is not whether Iraq had WMDs in the 1980s, though. Or whether it had them in 1991. The question many people ask - and Freepers alike - is whether Iraq still had such weapons in 2003. Whether Iraq was rebuilding a WMD arsenal and whether that country was doing forbidden research about nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. Such is the question, because WMDs were given as a (some would say the) motivation for the invasion. Of course, if you ask me, I'd say the toppling of a demented tyrant was a good enough objective of the war.

[Atlantic Friend]

Then the mystery thickens. I really can't imagine him sending his family to a safe haven and "bravely" choosing to stay in Iraq. But it's a good point you're making here, Mary.

Oh, maybe his wife had long wanted to dump him, and she got custody of the children AND the WMDs ? lol Or, more seriously, maybe Uday and Qusai double-crossed their father and left him behind ?

[NorseWood]

bump

[plain talk]

Or maybe the Syrians didn't want him. They didn't love him anyway and may have said, no thank you, after seeing what happened to Iraq and that Bush was serious.

[Forrestfire]

Don't forget the reports that he was getting diplomatic reports from the French that we would not attack.

[New Perspective]

Anyone who believes he never had them and Bush lied, is an idiot.

I agree with you.

[PISANO]

All you said makes perfect "LOGICAL" sense. What will never make logical sense to me is why a dictator would give up the lap of luxury, the status but MOSTLY give up THE POWER, for a 8 foot rathole and certain execution to perpetuate a MYTH.

No matter how it is SPUN (I have heard many 'reasons') none of them MAKE ANY logical sense. To say Saddam was just a madman with no sense and didn't want to 'seem' to give in to UN demands or to keep his neighbors 'afraid' of him, doesn't cut it for me. All he had to do to stay in power was to show the UN the WMD were destroyed and then implement the WMD programs that we know are there and in place. We know he was a patient and relentless man and dictator. This just makes no sense.

[sean327]

You make a good argument, but the WMD intel was a failure. There is a huge differnce between Operational Intel and Strategic Intel.
The intel used to target Saddam, take Bagdad,capture Saddam, kill his sons and capture the deck of 52 was Operational Intel most likley developed by tactical units S-2, or G-2 sections.
The CIA, or other non military agencies had little to do with this.
The WMD matter on the other hand was developed exclusivly by the Big Intel agencies, CIA, NSA, MI-6 ect. That intel failed mostly due to the fact we did not have assets on the ground at the time to confirm what was being put out. That my friends is the failure of the previous administration, and Congress for allowing our Intel agencies to decay to such a point.
The failure lies with them! The CIA and friends were working with what they had.

[Coop]

And there is plenty of other supporting evidence available to back up those assertions. No, there is not...at least right now.

You're either playing word games or not paying attention. I'll presume it's the latter.

One more time, from Dr. Kay:

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 report linked in #103 or his testimony thread linked in #123. There is PLENTY of evidence to back up the WMD location claims.

[Atlantic Friend]

Oh, how funny ! Come on, Forrest, everybody knew you were going to attack. Just everybody, even our Foreign Minister.

[Atlantic Friend]

Ah, yes, now that's a possibility I hadn't thought of. In that case, it must have come to a shock to poor old Saddam. Everybody escapes...but not him. I like it.

[BureaucratusMaximus]

BUMP to your #103.

[gatex]

"I am in the no WMD camp. Face it. A janitor in a WMD facility could become a very wealthy man right now by telling us where the stuff was buried...."

Where is Jimmy Hoffa ?

[Coop]

There is a huge differnce between Operational Intel and Strategic Intel.

In my view you confuse Strategic Intel with Politics. I doubt you'll find an objective operational or strategic commander who would be overall dissatisfied with the intel from Iraqi Freedom. (And keep in mind that no combat commander is ever completely satisfied! They want a complete picture, which is never possible.) The politicians are the ones in a hissy fit.

[Quix]

i THOROUGHLY agree with you.