Posted on 08/11/2004 8:38:45 PM PDT by COEXERJ145
Saddam Hussein gave up all of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War, the scientist who headed his nuclear program, Jaffar Dhia Jaffar, said in a BBC interview on Wednesday.
"There was no capability. There was no chemical or biological or any what are called weapons of mass destruction," said Jaffar in what BBC television called his first-ever broadcast interview.
Speaking in Paris, where he now lives, Jaffar - who ran Saddam's nuclear program for 25 years - said there was "no development" of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons "at any time after 1991".
He said he knew that for a fact "because I am in touch with the people concerned".
Saddam's quest for weapons of mass destruction - and the fear that they might fall into the hands of global terrorists - was one of the prime reasons given for the US and British invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
Nearly 18 months on, no such weapons have been uncovered - a fact that both US President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have been forced to concede.
Jaffar told the BBC he remained loyal to Saddam's regime until he slipped out of Iraq via Syria two days before the fall of Baghdad which signalled the collapse of the longtime Iraqi dictator.
(Excerpt) Read more at afr.com ...
FEBRUARY 2003 : (IRAQ : UN ARMS INSPECTORS VISITED FACILITY IN THE VICINITY OF KARBALA CHEMICAL PLANT - KARBALA PLANT IS WHERE US ARMY WOULD LATER FIND BURIED SHIPPING CONTAINERS OF LAB EQUIPMENT) U.N. arms inspectors visited a facility in the immediate vicinity of the [Karbala] chemical plant Feb. 23, but did not find the buried equipment. [that 101st Airborne later found buried at the plant] Officials at the U.S. Central Command suggested that no conclusions should be drawn.- "Experts: U.S. 'Discovery' of Nuke Materials in Iraq Was Breach of U.N.-Monitored Site," Thursday, April 10, 2003
Associated Press via Fox News
FEBRUARY 21, 2003 : (IRAQ & UN INSPECTIONS : UN ORDERS IRAQ TO DESTROY AL SAMOUD 2 MISSILE SYSTEM & REBUILT CASTING CHAMBERS) Iraq has declared development and production of two types of missiles that were capable of surpassing the proscribed range limit of 150 kilometres. As a result of expert assessments, it was concluded that all variants of the Al Samoud 2 missile were inherently capable of exceeding the range and, therefore, constituted a proscribed weapons system. Clarification of the Al Fatah missile data was required before the capability of the missile system could be assessed. On 21 February, UNMOVIC directed Iraq to destroy the proscribed missile system, as well as reconstituted casting chambers. - "Statements to the UN Security Council by two Inspectors and Members of the SC, 7 Mar 2003 ," UN Press Release SC/7682, 07/03/2003, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/859554/posts
MARCH 2003 : (IRAQ : SCIENTISTS & SPECIAL REPUBLICAN GUARD ABANDON AL TUWAITHA NUCLEAR RESEARCH FACILITY, ACCORDING TO LATER REPORTS OF IRAQI VILLAGERS) - "Marines hold nuclear site," by Carl Prine, Pittsburgh Tribune Review, Wednesday, April 9, 2003
APRIL 2003 : (JORDAN BASE POISON PLOT : JORDAN SUSPECTS THAT IRAQI DIPLOMATS PLOTTED TO POISON WATER SUPPLIES SERVING BASES USED BY THE USA IN MARCH) Jordan supected Iraqi diplomats whom it expelled last month of plotting to poison water supplies serving military bases near the Iraqi border used by US service personnel, diplomatic sources said Tuesday. "The Iraqi diplomats expelled on March 23 were conspiring to poison water mains serving the east of Jordan," where most of the US forces deployed in the kingdom are based, one of the sources told AFP, declining to be identified. The source did not elaborate on the nature of the poison said to have been involved in the plot. Jordan originally expelled five embassy staff but later lifted the expulsion order against two of them. King Abdullah II also made clear the following day that Jordan was ready to allow Iraq to name replacements for those kicked out. - "Jordan suspected expelled Iraqi diplomats of poisoning plot (on U.S. military base water supply)," Agence France-Presse , April 1, 2003
APRIL 2, 2003 : (JORDAN : AUTHORITIES ARREST IRAQI AGENTS IN CONNECTION WITH A PLOT TO POISON THE WATER SUPPLY THAT SERVES US TROOPS IN EASTERN JORDAN) Meanwhile, Jordanian authorities have arrested several Iraqi agents in connection with a plot to poison a water supply that serves U.S. troops in eastern Jordan, officials said yesterday. The men are suspected of trying to poison a water tank that serves U.S. troops at a military base in Khao, according to the New York Times. It is still unknown how close the Iraqi agents were to succeeding before they were captured, but no one has reported sick or injured, officials said (-- "" Alan Feuer, New York Times, April 2, 2003 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/02/international/worldspecial/02JORD.html).
APRIL 4, 2003? : (SARGAT, IRAQ : ANSAR AL ISLAM CAMP TESTS POSITIVE FOR TOXINS RICIN & BOTULINUM) April 4 — MSNBC.com tests reveal evidence of the deadly toxins ricin and botulinum at a laboratory in a remote mountain region of northern Iraq allegedly used as a terrorist training camp by Islamic militants with ties to the al-Qaida terrorist network. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is conducting its own tests at the same area, but has not yet released the results, according to officials in northern Iraq.
MSNBC.COM’S TESTS were conducted over a two-day period at Sargat, an alleged terrorist training camp a mile from the Iraq-Iran border. The camp, set back in an isolated valley and surrounded by snowcapped peaks, was home to the radical Islamic militant group Ansar al-Islam, which counts among its some 700 followers scores of al-Qaida fighters.
In a Feb. 5 speech to the U.N. Security Council, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell showed a satellite photo of the Sargat camp and described Ansar al-Islam as “teaching its operatives how to produce ricin and other poisons.” U.S. officials have repeated the allegations in recent weeks.
MSNBC.com’s samples of ricin and botulinum, two deadly biological agents, were taken from the soles of a boot and a shoe recovered from the Sargat camp. The facility has been flattened by several Tomahawk cruise missiles, fired as part of the U.S. campaign against Ansar al-Islam.
The thick rubber boot twice tested positive for ricin, a toxin derived from castor beans. Ingesting a pinch of ricin, which causes shock and respiratory failure, can kill a human being within 72 hours. There is no cure.
A black running shoe, shredded by the U.S. bombing, tested positive for botulinum. U.S. officials say terrorists have a particular interest in botulinum and ricin toxins, which may be delivered through release in food and water. -- "Positive test for terror toxins in Iraq," MSNBC.com finds signs of ricin, botulinum at Islamic militants’ camp, http://osborn-scientific.com/PDF/Positive_test_for_terror_toxins_in_Iraq.htm
APRIL 10, 2003 Thursday : (FORMER IAEA INSPECTOR KAY SAYS RECENTLY DISCOVERED TUWAITHA UNDERGROUND NUCLEAR WEAPONS SITE WAS MISSED BY UN INSPECTION TEAMS AFTER [OPERATION DESERT STORM] GULF WAR DESPITE RUMORS IT EXISTED) David Kay, a former IAEA chief nuclear inspector, said Thursday that the teams he oversaw after the 1991 Gulf War never found an underground site at Tuwaitha despite persistent rumors. "But underground facilities by definition are very hard to detect," he said. "When you inspect a place so often, you get overconfident about what you know. It would have been very easy for the inspectors to explain away any excessive radiation at Tuwaitha. The Iraqis could have hidden something clandestine in plain sight."- "Experts: U.S. 'Discovery' of Nuke Materials in Iraq Was Breach of U.N.-Monitored Site," Thursday, April 10, 2003
Associated Press via Fox News
APRIL 12, 2003 Saturday : (KIRKUK, IRAQ : CHEMICAL WARHEAD DISCOVERED) Weapons experts were called Saturday to an occupied northern Iraqi air base in Kirkuk to determine if a warhead discovered there is laden with a chemical agent. ...This suspected chemical warhead discovered at an air base near Kirkuk is marked with a green band, which sources said is the symbol for chemical weaponry. ... The warhead was found in a box Friday during routine operations to secure the airfield by the U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade. It is about the width of a coffee can and marked with a green band that military sources said is the universal symbol for chemical weaponry. ...
Two initial "improved chemical agent monitor" (ICAM) tests showed trace amounts of a nerve agent on the baseball bat-length warhead -- at the rear and in the middle where there is a screwed-down circular area about the size of a quarter. ICAM is a miniature chemical agent detector that allows for simultaneous detection of nerve and blister vapors and aerosol agents.
The warhead tested at one bar on a six-bar scale, which would be consistent with leakage from a chemically armed weapon, military sources said. But two subsequent ICAM tests showed zero on the scale, contradicting the earlier tests.
A soldier who performed the second pair of tests told CNN that little should be gathered from the findings, because no definitive answers would emerge until chemical experts arrive at the base and break into the warhead itself.
Soldiers were standing guard Saturday outside the storage facility where the warhead was found.
A large wooden box next to the one with the warhead contained a 13-foot missile, one of many troops have found at the base.
Some underground bunkers the size of basketball courts were discovered piled high with cans of munitions, crates of missiles and 1,000-pound bombs.
"It appears as though the air base was evacuated hastily," said Maj. Rob Gowan, a public affairs officer. "A lot of indicators seem to say that the Iraqi forces that were here left very quickly." - "Suspected chemical warhead found in Kirkuk - Ex-Iraqi colonel says he has chemical weapons information," from Thomas Nybo, CNN, Saturday, April 12, 2003 Posted: 4:46 PM EDT (2046 GMT) Thomas Nybo is accompanying U.S. troops with the 173rd Airborne Brigade.
The US found 500 tons of Uranium in Iraq but the media did not report it.
But I heard Brit Humes today say that saddams soldiers hid the bio weapons around and that saddam was two years away from a nuclear weapon in 91 and he would use it on the U.S
Why yes, we reconstituted those casting chambers, Mr. Blix, because we wanted to get into the lucrative business of casting cement lawn donkeys.
Just as I suspected! He was out to corner the lawn ornament business.
Now I feel so foolish supporting the invasion of Iraq.
APRIL 2003 : (GERMAN AUTHORITIES ALERT FRENCH CONCERNING ALUMINUM TUBES LOADED ONTO A FRENCH SHIP; TUBES BELIEVED TO BE DESTINED FOR NORTH KOREAN NUCLEAR PROGRAM) THE German government has intercepted a shipment of German-made aluminium tubes probably destined for use in North Korea's nuclear program, according to a German magazine. The weekly Der Spiegel says in its latest issue that 22 tonnes of aluminium tubes, essential in the manufature of enriched uranium, were loaded onto a French ship in Hamburg in early April just as German authorities vetoed the shipment. The German government alerted the French authorities, who ordered the ship's captain to unload the containers in Egypt. Officially the tubes were on their way to a Chinese aeronautics company, but according to Der Spiegel Berlin believes this company was a front for North Korea. The German firm's business contact was a North Korean national, it says. The magazine says the head of the German company, called Optronic and based at Koenigsbronn in southern Germany, was detained for questioning. The prosecutor's office in Stuttgart confirmed it had opened an investigation into a local firm suspected of contravening foreign trade regulations, but gave no further details. On Thursday, in the first direct high-level contact between the United States and North Korea since the crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear program erupted last October, North Korea confirmed it possessed nuclear weapons.- "'Nuke-related' shipment for N.Korea," News.com.au, 4/27/03 * See also : French Freighter intercepted by Germans in Egypt carrying Nuclear Material
JUNE 2003 : (DR. DAVID KELLY IS INTERVIEWED BY THE UK'S SUNDAY TIMES : KELLY REVEALS THAT IRAQ CONCOCTED A DIRTY BOMB DURING THE IRAN-IRAQ WAR) In a June interview with the newspaper, Kelly revealed that Saddam originally built the dread weapon [a dirty bomb] capable of causing cancer and birth defects for use against Iranian troops during the Iran-Iraq war as a tactical weapon and an instrument of terror. Moreover Kelly insisted that said Iraq still "possessed the know-how and the materials to build a radiological weapon, "adding that the threat posed by such weapons was potentially more serious than some other weapons of mass destruction because Iraq still retained the main ingredients to build dirty bombs such as nuclear material and high explosives. When the Times asked why this shocking information was not featured in the British government's case for going to war against Iraq, Kelly said he did not know, but added that there were people in government who were skeptical about the potency of such a weapon. In private, Kelly is said to have believed the evidence should have been included in the dossier because of the possibility that Iraq could reactivate the program even after it had been stripped of other non-conventional weapons. - "Dead U.K. Expert: Saddam Built a Dirty Bomb," by Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com, Monday, Aug. 4, 2003
AUGUST 2003 : (UK TELEGRAPH REPORT : DR. KAY'S WMD SURVEY TEAM FOUND THAT IRAQI LEADER HUSSEIN GAVE THE ORDER TO USE CHEMICAL WEAPONS) New revelations from the man leading the WMD survey team show that Saddam gave the order to fire his deadly weapons. Con Coughlin assesses the meaning of this little-acknowledged breakthrough Thousands of miles from the febrile atmosphere of Court 73 of the Royal Courts of Justice in London where Lord Hutton is conducting his inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly, one of the British scientist's former colleagues was last week making yet another highly significant discovery in the hunt for Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction arsenal. - "Meanwhile, Saddam's secrets rise from the desert," by Con Coughlin, The Sunday Telegraph (U.K.) , 08/17/03
AUGUST 9, 2003 : (CIA & DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY STAND BY CONCLUSIONS IN MAY 28 WHITE PAPER "IRAQI MOBILE BIOLOGICAL WARFARE AGENT PRODUCTION PLANTS" IN SPITE OF THE NY TIMES REPORTER JEHL'S BEST EFFORTS TO MAKE THE CONCLUSIONS SOUND DOUBTFUL) Officials at the C.I.A. and the Defense Department said today that the two intelligence agencies still stood by the May 28 finding, which President Bush has cited as evidence that Iraq had a biological weapons program. - "Iraqi Trailers Said to Make Hydrogen, Not Biological Arms," by DOUGLAS JEHL, The New York Times, August 9, 2003
SEPTEMBER 2003 : (FORMER NORTH KOREAN'S DIPLOMATIC REP TO THE IAEA,YUN HO JIN, IS ACCUSED OF ORDERING ALUMINUM TUBES SUITABLE FOR USE IN URANIUM ENRICHMENT FROM A GERMAN FIRM; MATERIALS WERE IMPOUNDED WHILE ABOARD A SHIP) HAMBURG, Germany (AFP) - A former North Korean diplomat is accused of ordering material from a German firm that could be used in the production of nuclear weapons, Germany's Der Spiegel reported in its Monday edition. The news magazine said a German businessman would go on trial in Stuttgart, southwest Germany, next month in connection with the case. The diplomat was named by Spiegel as Yun Ho Jin. It said he used to work as a Pyongyang representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. According to Der Spiegel, Yun Ho Jin ordered special aluminium tubes from the businessman which, experts say, are used to build gas ultracentrifuges in which uranium is enriched. The equipment was impounded in April after being loaded on board a ship. The unidentified businessman, who got to know the diplomat in the late 1980s, is accused of breaching trade export laws and "attempts to encourage production of a nuclear weapon." Experts from the IAEA, the German foreign ministry and the German foreign intelligence service are expected to testify, the magazine added. - "North Korean diplomat implicated in nuclear plot: German press," Agence France-Presse, September 21, 2003
A Saddam loyalist says there are no WMDs. Sure, he's a credible source.
OCTOBER 2003 : (GERMAN SHIP CARRYING CENTRIFUGE PARTS IS DIVERTED ON ITS WAY TO LIBYA) THE United States... led an operation to seize uranium enrichment components from a German freighter headed for Libya that ... [would seal] ... Tripoli's decision to publicly renounce weapons of mass destruction [in Dec 2003]... "A ship was diverted based on intelligence it was carrying centrifuge parts in early October," State Department spokesman Adam Ereli [later] told reporters, calling it "a significant and important development". - "US confirms uranium seizure ," By Matthew Lee in Washington, News.com.au, January 1, 2004
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