Posted on 06/09/2004 9:46:53 PM PDT by Anti-Bubba182
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - U.N. weapons experts have found 20 engines used in banned Iraqi missiles in a Jordan scrapyard along with other equipment which could be used to make weapons of mass destruction, an official said Wednesday.
The discoveries were revealed to the U.N. Security Council by acting chief U.N. inspector Demetrius Perricos during in a closed-door briefing. The text was obtained by The Associated Press.
The U.N. team was following up on an earlier discovery of a similar Al Samoud 2 engine in a scrapyard in the Dutch port of Rotterdam. Perricos said inspectors also want to check in Turkey, which has also received scrap metal from Iraq.
The discoveries raise questions about the fate of material and equipment that could be used to produce biological and chemical weapons as well as banned long-range missiles.
The missile engines and some other equipment discovered in the scrapyards had been monitored by U.N. inspectors because of their potential dual use in both legitimate civilian activities and banned weapons production.
In his briefing to the Security Council, Perricos said U.N. inspectors do not how much material has been removed from Iraq that they had been monitoring.
U.N. inspectors were pulled out of Iraq just before the war began in March 2003, and the United States has refused to allow them to return, instead deploying its own teams to search for weapons of mass destruction.
Perricos suggested that the interim Iraqi government, which will assume sovereignty when the U.S. and British occupation of the country ends on June 30, may want to reconsider "the whole policy for the continued export of metal scrap" which apparently started in mid-2003 and is regulated by the U.S.-led coalition.
"The removal of these materials from Iraq raises concerns with regard to proliferation risks ... thereby also rendering the task of the disarmament of Iraq and its eventual confirmation, more difficult," Perricos said.
"The only controls at the borders are for the weight of the scrap metal, and to check whether there are any explosive or radioactive materials within the scrap," he said, according to the text of his briefing.
Afterwards, he told reporters that up to a thousand tons of scrap metal was leaving Iraq every day.
"It's being exported. It's being traded out, and there is a large variety of scrap metal from very new to very old, and slowly, it seems the country is depleted of metal," he said.
During last week's visit to Jordan, Perricos told the council that U.N. experts visited "relevant scrapyards" with the full cooperation of Jordanian authorities and discovered 20 SA-2 missile engines.
The U.N. team also discovered some processing equipment with U.N. tags - which show it was being monitored - including heat exchangers, and a solid propellant mixer bowl to make missile fuel, he said. It also discovered "a large number of other processing equipment without tags, in very good condition."
"These visits provide just a snapshot of the whole picture since the scrap metal has a short residence time and is re-exported to various countries," Perricos told the council.
In its quarterly report to the council on Monday, the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission which Perricos heads, said a number of sites in Iraq known to have contained equipment and material that could be used to produce banned weapons and long-range missiles have been cleaned out or destroyed.
The inspectors said they didn't know whether the items, which had been monitored by the United Nations, were at the sites during the U.S.-led war in Iraq. The commission, known as UNMOVIC, said it was possible some material was taken by looters and sold as scrap.
UNMOVIC said its experts and a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. body responsible for dismantling Iraq's nuclear program, were jointly investigating items from Iraq discovered in a scrapyard in Rotterdam.
ping
bump to follow-up
Hmmmm, how interesting. Now all we need is for them to come across the barrels of chemicals and we're all set.
Sounds like the USA. Where is the regulation here? Good old United Nations, gotta hate 'em!
Bong..
ping!
They also found missile parts in the Netherlands. That's why we didn't find any in Iraq. Saddam had plenty of time to hide them and get them out of the country.
UN inspectors find Iraqi missile parts
http://203.210.108.22/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/25448/story.htm
UNITED NATIONS - Equipment relating to missiles and has other possible weapons uses has been spirited out of Iraq for recycling in scrapyards in the Netherlands, U.N. inspectors say.
In Iraq, a number of sites which once contained equipment that could be used for biological or chemical weapons, has been emptied and dismantled since May 2003, according to a report to the U.N. Security Council released on Monday.
"A number of sites which contained dual-use equipment that was previously monitored by U.N. inspectors have been systematically taken apart," said Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the New York-based inspectors. "The question this raises is what happened to equipment known to have been at there.
"Where is it now? It's a concern," Buchanan asked.
The WMD are probably all over the entire Mideast.
I predict more & more of these stories.....but the media will never admit Iraq had WMD.
"Well, ummm we could tow say 300 people on water skis if we mounted it on a ski boat?"
been posted here
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1150934/posts
Sure am glad the UN was monitoring those missile engines so closely. I am sure they will be releasing a report about the missile engines they were monitoring disappearing any year now. Why just imagine if a terrorist country got a hold of WMD materials and the UN did not notice for a month or two until a city went up in smoke or Hundreds of thousands of people died of Anthrax.
It is funny that the UN says that they were monitoring the WMD materials in Iraq close enough that Saddam could not have borrowed it for a day or two to make Anthrax during the last ten years, but did not notice it was outright missing until they stumbled across UN tags in a scrap yard around the world.
Just think, Nobody had to smuggle WMD materials in and out of Iraq, all they had to do was label it scrap and not even bother to take off the WMD UN red tags to get it right through the UN "inspectors".
Yep, we can sleep safely with the UN on the Guard. As the shipment of scrap metal did not take place during or after the war, whole Skud Missile systems were just driven out of the UN "Monitored" ammo depot and shipped to other countries right through the UN customs inspectors.
I can understanding smuggling a transistor radio in a back pack, but Skud Missile engines on flatbed trucks?!
The UN is a joke at best and a cover for terrorists at worst. And for this fiasco, we have to pay Billions in taxes to support this caviar slurping bunch of warmongers.
Don't ignore the possibility that some of it might be in Iran.
"Well, ummm we could tow say 300 people on water skis if we mounted it on a ski boat?"
At the end of a very long tow rope.
"U.N. weapons experts have found 20 engines used in banned Iraqi missiles in a Jordan scrapyard along with other equipment which in all likelihood came from weapons of mass destruction shipped out of Iraq by Hussein in the months before he was toppled", an official said Wednesday. "We'll be looking in Syrian scrapyards next."
Wellllll...we don't make the engines (or motors) here - we make the warheads to go on the other end...there may a spare somewhere if you want to borrow that. Only thing is, if you use it, we want you to be a long, long, long ways away from here.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.