UN Confirms: WMDs Smuggled Out of Iraq

The Vanguard ^ | June 18, 2004 | Rod D. Martin

[Veritas_est]

UN Confirms: WMDs Smuggled Out of Iraq

© June 18, 2004, Rod D. Martin

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?

You probably haven't heard about Canada's Prime Minister Paul Martin either -- a socialist and no friend of America. Addressing a group of 700 university researchers and business leaders in Montreal last month, Martin stated bluntly that terrorists have acquired WMDs from Saddam. “The fact is that there is now, we know well, a proliferation of nuclear weapons, and that many weapons that Saddam Huseein had, we don't know where they are…. [T]errorists have access to all of them,” the Canadian premier warned.

The tip of this terrorist sword was scarcely deflected on April 26th, when Jordanian intelligence broke up an al Qaeda conspiracy to detonate a large chemical device in the capital city of Amman. Directed by al Qaeda terrorist leader Abu al-Zarqawi -- the same man who personally beheaded American Nicholas Berg in Iraq last month -- the plotters sought to use a massive explosion to spread a “toxic cloud”, meant to wipe out the U.S. embassy, the Jordanian prime minister's office, the Jordanian intelligence headquarters, and at least 20,000 civilians (by contrast, only 3,000 died on 9/11). Over twenty tons of chemical weapons were seized from the conspirators, who were just days away from carrying out their plot.

One wonders where CNN and USA Today think twenty tons of nerve gas and sarin came from: Chemical Weapons-Mart? Yet their coverage, like most major media outlets, mentioned not a word about Saddam's smuggled WMDs, which -- according to liberal dogma -- “don't exist.”

Even though the UN says they do exist, now spread around the world.

It's not just the UN. Bill Clinton says they exist, even after the war: in a July 2003 interview with Larry King, the ex-president uncharacteristically defended George Bush, saying “it is incontestable that on the day I left office, there [was]…a substantial amount of biological and chemical material unaccounted for” in Iraq. Every intelligence agency in the world -- French, British, German, Russian, Czech, you name it -- agreed before the war; Jordanian intelligence can certainly confirm their opinion today.

So what's the deal? Why the relentless pretence that “Bush lied” when even the UN and Bill Clinton say he didn't? Why the absolute silence about “inconvenient” parts of various UN reports, such as the discovery of chemical and biological weapons plans, recipes and equipment; of bio-weapons agents in an Iraqi scientist's house; of a prison lab for testing bio weapons on humans; of complexes for manufacturing fuel for prohibited long-range missiles; of artillery rounds containing enough sarin to kill thousands of people, of similar shells containing mustard gas, two (but far from the only) of which were used in a terrorist attack against U.S. forces just weeks ago?

America cannot afford the answer to this “why”: that many on the left consider George W. Bush's defeat more urgent than al Qaeda's, his political death more essential than the possible physical death of millions of Americans.

The character of our foreign enemies has never been in doubt. The character of the enemy within -- from Dan Rather to Michael Moore -- has never been clearer. And the stakes are the highest they've ever been.

Rod D. Martin is Founder and Chairman of Vanguard PAC. A former policy director to Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Special Counsel to PayPal.com Founder Peter Thiel, he is a member of the Board of Governors of the Council for National Policy, a Vice President of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA), and author of the forthcoming Visions of America.

[Pete'sWife]

Watch the dems spin this to their advantage:

"If Bush hadn't gone to war with Iraq, all the weapons would still be in one place."

Americans have a very short attention span and, with the assistance of the media, this will get tremendous airplay.

[OneLoyalAmerican]

Does anyone have the quote from Ann Coulter about the dirty bomb found in NY harbor?

Please provide a link.

[Soaring Feather]

bump

[Sender]

"If Bush hadn't gone to war with Iraq, all the weapons would still be in one place."

Yeah, and I'm sure if Bush hadn't gone to war with Iraq, Hans Blix and the Keystone Kops would have found them all the next weekend ;)

[homemom]

Why isn't this "Breaking news" on every channel?

I hope the Bush team hypes it up big time. And SOON!

[jmstein7]

BUMP!

[Tunehead54]

Bookmark bump. Thanks!

---

;-)

[Eva]

Rush is on vacation. I haven't heard any one discuss this in the media. I think that it's time for an e-mail barrage. O'Reilly should be a prime target because he has made such a big deal of the fact that WMDs were not found.

[Mo1]

One wonders where CNN and USA Today think twenty tons of nerve gas and sarin came from: Chemical Weapons-Mart? Yet their coverage, like most major media outlets, mentioned not a word about Saddam's smuggled WMDs, which -- according to liberal dogma -- “don't exist.”

They are too worried about whether or not the terrorists are getting even sleep

[dd5339]

And we haven't seen this as the lead story on CBS? I'm shocked!

Semper Fi

[gathersnomoss]

There a satellites overhead that can see virtually every square inch of the earth, from what I understand. Wouldn't it stand to reason that someone, somewhere has access to data showing these weapons being moved?

Is this part of an October surprise or we just heading down another rat hole?

[Law is not justice but process]

"The Rotterdam material was still radioactive."

I hadn't heard that part yet. What kind of items were radioactive?

Brings to mind the find of "yellow cake" uranium tied to Iraq (maybe in March or April?).

[GVnana]

I don't know a lot of details because the story only got about one day of play. Apparently, that's how the materials in Rotterdam were discovered. It's all scrap metal that entered the markets prior to the Iraq invasion. Seems the major international ports now have detection of radioactive material, and when the source was tracked-down at the port, the authorities discovered old missle parts that still had UN inspection tags on them.

Saddam still poisoning us.

[GVnana]

Like your screen name, BTW.

[OXENinFLA]

Hildabeast question Gen. Casy


http://c-span.org/watch/index.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS2&ShowVidDays=30&ShowVidDesc=&ArchiveDays=30

on the right

[wku man]

I made the same argument last week, that Bush and the Pubbies should be screaming this at the top of their lungs. They should be screaming that NBC weapons have already been used against our guys. Then our FRiend, been_lurking, told me that it's no big deal, that Joe and Jane Sixpack in the mushy middle don't care one way or the other, and that the Pubbies shouldn't waste any time educating them about the truth.

been, I thought you might want to make that same case here on this thread that you made with me, since it seems I'm not the only one who's POd about the apparent cowardice of the Pubbies and Bush.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[bray]

Blatent Media Bias

[Law is not justice but process]

"There is no nation of any other culture that borders an Islamic nation that is not at war with them."

Not declared war in all cases, certainly, but war nonetheless. I think those who suffered through Indonesia's occupation of Timor, the Turkish Invasion of Cyprus (as well as all Greeks), the Bosnian-Serbian conflict, the entire history of Israel, etc. would all agree with you.

I would say the most interesting war, however, is that going on within the Islamic countries themselves. There is a small but growing minority of Muslims who are fed up with the backwardness of Islam as preached by fundamentalist imams. I have met several during my many years of postgraduate education. I believe the WOT is aimed at putting those people in charge.

Can we succeed? The jury is still out, but the ferocity with which the terrorists are attacking the Iraqi Interim Government sure indicates that THEY think we can succeed and are VERY afraid of us doing just that.

[kjfine]

Hmmm, good story. Thanks for the ping! Makes me feel even more justified in our liberation efforts!