"In a report which might alternately be termed “stunning” or “terrifying”, United Nations weapons inspectors confirmed last week not merely that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but that he smuggled them out of his country, before, during and after the war. Late last week, the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) briefed the Security Council on Saddam's lightning-fast dismantling of missile and WMD sites before and during the war. UNMOVIC executive chairman Demetrius Perricos detailed not only the export of thousands of tons of missile components, nuclear reactor vessels and fermenters for chemical and biological warheads, but also the discovery of many (but not most) of these items - with UN inspection tags still on them -- as far afield as Jordan, Turkey and even Holland.
Notably absent from that list is Iraq's western neighbor Syria, ruled by its own Baath Party just like Saddam's and closed to even the thought of an UNMOVIC inspection. Israeli intelligence has been reporting the large-scale smuggling of Saddam's WMD program across the Syrian border since at least two months before the war. Syria has long been the world's foremost state-sponsor of terrorism.
Perricos highlighted the proliferation danger to the Security Council, as well he should: UNMOVIC has no idea where most of the WMD material is today, just that it exists and it's gone; and anything in Syria is likely to be in Jerusalem or New York tomorrow. This is the biggest news story of 2004 so far. Yet you haven't heard about it, have you?
Spread the word, since the Vast LeftWing Medyuh Whore'd won't...MUD
Bump!
- I couldn't find anything that verifies your Vangard article.
Is there a link to a mainstream news source?
The U.N. does verify ongoing weapons programs, but not that any had been shipped to other countries. Scrapyards in the Netherlands do have findings of Al Samoud missile parts, however.
Here's the link to the U.N. Doc:
A HREF=http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/new/documents/quarterly_reports/s-2004-435.pdf
From the U.N. Report:
III. Compendium of proscribed weapons and programmes
11. One of the issues currently under examination by UNMOVIC in the framework of work on the compendium is the evaluation of Iraq’s procurement network that operated from 1999 to 2002, the period in which inspectors were absent from Iraq.
During this period, Iraq utilized a sophisticated procurement network for the acquisition of foreign materials, equipment and technology. It consisted of State owned trading companies, established and controlled by the Military Industrialization Commission of Iraq, with branches in foreign countries, Iraqi private sector and foreign trading companies operating in Iraq and abroad, multiple intermediaries, chains of foreign suppliers of items and materials, bank accounts and transportation companies. In several instances, the Iraqi State-owned trading companies had shares in foreign trading companies or were closely affiliated with local private trading companies.
12. The prime purpose of the evaluation is to identify whether this network has been used for the acquisition of proscribed single-use or notifiable dual-use items and materials that could have been utilized by Iraq in a biological, chemical or missile programme.
13. The bulk of the data for the evaluation came from the semi-annual monitoring declarations of Iraq, procurement information obtained during the course of inspection activities in Iraq from November 2002 to March 2003, notes of interviews and discussions with Iraqi officials and electronic files retrieved through the forensic computer exploitation carried out at facilities and establishments involved in procurement. The computer files alone constitute some 12,000 pages of procurement documents, most of which are in Arabic. The following are preliminary findings of the ongoing examination.
14. In general, from 1999 to 2002 Iraq procured a variety of dual-use biological and chemical items and materials, including chemicals, equipment and spare parts.
To date, UNMOVIC has found no evidence that these were used for proscribed chemical or biological weapon purposes. Although some of the goods may have been acquired by Iraq outside the framework of mechanisms established under Security Council resolutions, most of them were later declared by Iraq to UNMOVIC in its semi-annual monitoring declarations.
15. However, in several instances Iraq provided misleading declarations regarding the suppliers and sources of the items and materials as well as procurement channels, claiming that they had been purchased on the local market. It appeared that they had been procured outside Iraq through private trading companies operating both in and outside of the country. There is much evidence that from 1999 to 2002 Iraq procured materials, equipment and components for use in its missile programmes. In several instances, the items procured were used by Iraq for programmes, such as the production of Al Samoud 2 missiles, that were determined by UNMOVIC in February 2003 to be proscribed. This can be illustrated by the acquisition of at least 380 SA-2 missile engines for Iraq's prime missile establishment by an Iraqi Government-owned trading company controlled by the Military Industrialization Commission through a local Iraqi trading company and a foreign trading company. UNMOVIC is currently analysing documents available to it in order to establish the source of the engines procured through the local trading company and of any additional SA-2 engines (or other missile-related items) that might have been procured by Iraq since 1999.
16. The same Iraqi governmental trading company was involved, through a contract with two foreign private companies, in procuring components and equipment for the manufacture and testing of missile guidance and control systems, including inertial navigation systems with fibre-optic and laser ring gyroscopes and Global Positioning System equipment, accelerometers, ancillary items and a variety of production and testing equipment.
The list of items sought includes several that were not declared or shown to UNMOVIC during the course of its inspections. One Iraqi trading company was also involved in the procurement, through private trading companies, of different pieces of missile-related production equipment and technology. Several foreign private subcontractors were responsible for the 6S/2004/435 implementation of specific parts of the general contract. UNMOVIC is in the process of assessing the possible applications of items and technology outlined in that contract.
17. UNMOVIC is trying to identify the extent to which these contracts have been fulfilled and what has actually been delivered to Iraq as well as the sources of items,
materials, components and technology.