Saddam's WMD Have Been Found

InsightMAG ^

[rs79bm]

New evidence out of Iraq suggests that the U.S. effort to track down Saddam Hussein's missing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is having better success than is being reported. Key assertions by the intelligence community that were widely judged in the media and by critics of President George W. Bush as having been false are turning out to have been true after all. But this stunning news has received little attention from the major media, and the president's critics continue to insist that "no weapons" have been found.

In virtually every case - chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic missiles - the United States has found the weapons and the programs that the Iraqi dictator successfully concealed for 12 years from U.N. weapons inspectors.

The Iraq Survey Group (ISG), whose intelligence analysts are managed by Charles Duelfer, a former State Department official and deputy chief of the U.N.-led arms-inspection teams, has found "hundreds of cases of activities that were prohibited" under U.N. Security Council resolutions, a senior administration official tells Insight. "There is a long list of charges made by the U.S. that have been confirmed, but none of this seems to mean anything because the weapons that were unaccounted for by the United Nations remain unaccounted for."

Both Duelfer and his predecessor, David Kay, reported to Congress that the evidence they had found on the ground in Iraq showed Saddam's regime was in "material violation" of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, the last of 17 resolutions that promised "serious consequences" if Iraq did not make a complete disclosure of its weapons programs and dismantle them in a verifiable manner. The United States cited Iraq's refusal to comply with these demands as one justification for going to war.

Both Duelfer and Kay found that Iraq had "a clandestine network of laboratories and safe houses with equipment that was suitable to continuing its prohibited chemical- and biological-weapons [BW] programs," the official said. "They found a prison laboratory where we suspect they tested biological weapons on human subjects." They found equipment for "uranium-enrichment centrifuges" whose only plausible use was as part of a clandestine nuclear-weapons program. In all these cases, "Iraqi scientists had been told before the war not to declare their activities to the U.N. inspectors," the official said.

But while the president's critics and the media might plausibly hide behind ambiguity and a lack of sensational-

looking finds for not reporting some discoveries, in the case of Saddam's ballistic-missile programs they have no excuse for their silence. "Where were the missiles? We found them," another senior administration official told Insight.

[MJY1288]

The people who hate this President consider Saddam Hussein a victim of this Administration. I seriously doubt anything will change their minds, even if we find all of the banned weapons we believed they possessed, the left will say Bush failed because some of these weapons might have got into the hands of terrorist while we paid too much attention to the Taliban in Afghanistan and not enough on Iraq. They will say we didn't commit enough troops to Iraq and Bush should be Impeached :-)

[Sun]

I wonder when mainstream news media will report this?

Maybe when pigs can fly.

[eyespysomething]

bump for later

[no dems]

First of all, is InsigtMag a RELIABLE source? I hope so. This would put the final nail in John Fonda Kerry's coffin; and it's only April.

Rush made a good point today: Would you consider killing 20,000 people at once "mass destruction". Well then, whatever weapons Saddam used would have to be considered "weapons of mass destruction". You go Rush!

[mcg1969]

Hannity had this guy on today, and was very skeptical. Basically he said "if the administration agreed with this analysis, why aren't they shouting it from the rooftops?"

Now to be fair, it is certainly possible that, IF this stuff checks out, the Bush administration is sitting on this until it the evidence is more voluminous, more irrefutable, more damning... and a little timing for politics wouldn't hurt.

However, I'm not holding my breath just yet.

[Heff]

Bump for later

[FlashBack]

Timing is everything...can't wait to see the Administration smack the 'Rats upside the head with this info...perhaps right after the Dems convention....
PRICELESS!!!!

[Rastus]

First of all, is InsigtMag a RELIABLE source?

From the site:

Insight on the News is a national biweekly newsmagazine published in Washington by the Washington Times Corp. As Newsweek is the sister publication of the Washington Post, Insight is the sister publication of the Washington Times.

[mcg1969]

OK. And? If you're trying to engender confidence by comparing Insight to Newsweek, umm, you won't have much luck :)

[Rastus]

Point is, if you trust the Wash. Times, you trust Insight. I do, and I do. Besides, from what I've read of this, most of this was already known. You just have to have read Kay instead of taking the media's spin.