King Abdullah: Al Qaeda WMDs Came From Syria

NewsMax.com ^ | 4/17/04 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[kattracks]

Jordan's King Abdullah revealed on Saturday that vehicles reportedly containing chemical weapons and poison gas that were part of a deadly al Qaeda bomb plot came from Syria, the country named by U.S. weapons inspector David Kay last year as a likely repository for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

"It was a major, major operation. It would have decapitated the government," King Abdullah told the San Francisco Chronicle. Jordanian officials estimated that the death count could have been as high as 20,000 - seven times greater than the Sept. 11 attacks.

Abdullah said that trucks containing 17.5 tons of explosives had come from Syria, though he took pains not to implicate Syrian President Bashir Assad in the al Qaeda plot, saying, "I'm completely confident that Bashir did not know about it."

In his testimony before Congress last year, Mr. Kay said U.S. satellite surveillance showed substantial vehicular traffic going from Iraq to Syria just prior to the U.S.attack on March 19, 2003 attack.

While Kay said investigators couldn't be sure the cargo contained weapons of mass destruction, one of his top advisors described the evidence as "unquestionable."

"People below the Saddam-Hussein-and-his-sons level saw what was coming and decided the best thing to do was to destroy and disperse," said James Clapper, in comments reported by the New York Times on Oct. 29. Clapper heads up the National Imagery and Mapping Agency.

Israeli intelligence has long believed that after the U.S. delayed invasion plans to allow U.N. weapons inspectors time to search for Iraq's WMDs, Saddam moved the banned weapons to Syria, the only other country where the Ba'ath Party ruled.

On April 1, Jordanian officials announced the arrest of several terrorist suspects, saying they were still hunting for two cars filled with explosives.

Five days later, the State Department revealed the attackers were linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-based terrorist considered to be one of al Qaeda's most dangerous. One of Zarqawi's targets was the U.S. embassy in Amman.

By Saturday morning European news services were quoting an unnamed Jordanian official who revealed that the al Qaeda plotters planned to use weapons of mass destruction in the foiled attack.

"We found primary materials to make a chemical bomb which, if it had exploded, would have made nearly 20,000 deaths ... in an area of one square kilometre," the official told Agence France Press.

Another operation planned by the network was to use "deadly gas against the US embassy and the prime minister's office in Amman," he added.

A car belonging to the al Qaeda plotters, containing a chemical bomb and poisonous gas, was intercepted just 75 miles from the Syrian border.

[swarthyguy]

Loftus Bump.

[evad]

I like it...
a RAT deck of cards.
Even more necessary than the Iraqi deck to flush out and deactivate these threats to the American way of life.

Where can I get one????

[alpowolf]

I presume then that they will be producing the trucks and explosives and gas for the world's inspection, forthwith? And proof of their origin? And they haven't already, because...?

[El Gato]

A 17.5 ton bomb would devastate a city....

Maybe a very small one. In general damage radius goes as the square or cube root of the "power" of the bomb. a 17.5 ton bomb would thus have between 2.6 and 4.2 times the blast radius of a 2000 pound aerial bomb. Not something you want going off next door, or even on the next block, but not enough to devastate a city. Actually the comparison isn't quite apt, as a 2000 pound bomb doesn't have 2000 pounds of explosive, but a 17.5 ton bomb wouldn't have the same characteristics either.

They'd probably cause more damage if they broke the load up into a dozen or two smaller "packages".

[Alamo-Girl]

Bump!

[secretagent]

jwalburg: Good to caution us about Newsmax and its misleading cite of Abdullah's remarks to the SF Chronicle - thanks for the link.

The SF Chronicle doesn't mention chemical weapons or poison gas at all, rather 17.5 tons of unnamed "high explosive".

Newsmax then speculates that the the "chemical weapons and poison gas" came from Iraq originally, except that it has no apparent basis for claiming that "chemical weapons and poison gas" entered Jordan. Abdullah didn't claim that in the SFC article.

Newsmax apparently lied on this or got sloppy.

[Eternal_Bear]

Newsmax probably confused fertilizer with chemicals. That is incredibly stupid but story is still very serious and constitutes a casus belli if the syrians knew about it.

[kezekiel]

If it weren't for the Democrats policizing the War on Terror, the logical thing for Bush to do is to invade Syria AND Iran right now.

We may be the strongest country in the world, but we aren't omnipotent. The Iraq war and subsequent occupation leaves us without the reserves that would be needed to not only conquer Iran and Syria, but occupy them as well. I understand your sentiment, but there has to be another way.

[Future Useless Eater]

>>I like it...
a RAT deck of cards.
Where can I get one????

Well the WEASELS deck of cards from post 8 you can buy
from newsmax.com and you can buy it there.

As for the coniving Clinton MOLE on the 911 commission,
Jamie GORELICK - from post 46,
That deck doesn't exist. I made that up here.

[Rik0Shay]

explosives are chemical weapons

[secretagent]

I don't agree:

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/Mager.html

[FairOpinion]

"there has to be another way."

WHICH IS??????


With all due respect, you sound like those running around with "War in Not the Answer" bumper stickers, but are totally clueless about what IS the answer?

With the terrorists WAR IS THE ONLY ANSWER.

[secretagent]

From the SFC article:

Abdullah said European anti-terrorism experts were aiding the Jordanian police investigation, but details were still sketchy -- including a solid identification of the type of explosive the suspects were carrying.

Again, no reason to think "fertilizer", although they might assume such, given the enormous amount - 17.5 tons. Sloppy.

Or they might have read the BBC report cited in Anti-Bubba 122's #36, and not cited it. That does mention "chemical weapons", but Newsmax doesn't refer to the BBC.

That is incredibly stupid but story is still very serious and constitutes a casus belli if the syrians knew about it.

Yes, but we can't tell from this Newsmax article or the cited SFC article linked in jwalburg's #12 that Syria's government knew about the explosives. Abdullah claims not.

[Carry_Okie]

Life goes on in Post 9/11 Slumberland, otherwise known as our major news media, where every day is a challenge to try and slander President Bush, uplift the Liberals and drive the Elections in their favor!

Who's going to sue over the fact that such bias constitutes an illegal campaign contribution?

[justshutupandtakeit]

Wow! Is the RATmedia reporting any of this? Is Fox?

[justshutupandtakeit]

I guess you haven't figured out that one of the principle reasons to proceed slowly and cautiously is precisely because we don't know that there aren't significant quantities of this shiite IN some of these houses. Those cities were never searched (all the big ammo dumps have not even been searched.) I suspect there are houses in the middle of ordinary streets which are repositories for these things.

We certainly don't want a houseload of this to go up in the middle of a large concentration of our troops. Consider these operations live fire exercises which give our troops practice but are also deadly.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Israel would back them but not say a word about it.

[ZOTnot]

I agree. We are, as a country, for the most part, in post 9/11 slumberland. I pray we pull out of it before Americans are surprised with a second visit from Al Quaeda.

[justshutupandtakeit]

I like the sound of that but don't believe it for a minute.

[justshutupandtakeit]

We don't have the forces to "invade" Iran and Syria now. Unless forces could be moved from Iraq. There could be Special Forces operations perhaps but where are the 200,000 infantry necessary for invasion?

The enemy at home is the first priority once it is defeated our enemies abroad will realize they have no chance and act like Libya. America's greatest enemy and threat is the RATmedia.