Posted on 09/09/2004 10:38:08 AM PDT by knighthawk
UNITED NATIONS: For more than a year, Iraqi authorities have been shipping thousands of tons of scrap metal out of the country including at least 42 engines from banned missiles and other equipment that could be used to produce weapons of mass destruction, according to a new report from UN weapons inspectors. The UN inspectors, who are barred from Iraq, said on Tuesday that commercial satellite photos show that several important sites once used to manufacture missiles and precursors for chemical weapons have been destroyed or cleaned out, and the fate of UN-monitored equipment that could be used to make banned weapons is unknown.
The report, which is to be presented to the UN Security Council on Wednesday, includes a lengthy analysis by the inspectors on the range and weapons capabilities of Iraq’s pilotless drones _ a subject of intense debate before last year’s US-led invasion of Iraq which was revived again this year.
The report by the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, known as UNMOVIC, cautioned, however, that it did not have access to information from US inspectors in the Iraq Survey Group who are still in the country and expected to produce a major report later this month. Their chief, Charles Duelfer, told Congress on March 30 that one of Iraq’s drones went far beyond the limit. After the Security Council imposed sanctions on Iraq following its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, UN weapons inspectors started tagging equipment that had potential dual use in both legitimate civilian activities and banned weapons production.
The discoveries of tagged missile engines and equipment in scrapyards in Jordan and the Netherlands _ and the destruction of sites being monitored by UN inspectors _ 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.
According to the new report, the export of scrap metal from Iraq is sizeable, ongoing, and worldwide. Interviews with 20 people involved in the scrap metal trade in Jordan revealed that the first Iraqi scrap metal started arriving in June 2003, followed by stainless steel and other more valuable allows later last summer, the report said.
Scrap yard managers estimated that 60,000 tons passed through Jordan’s largest free trade zone in 2003, and an additional 70,000 went through until June this year, the report said.
UN inspectors were told this was "only a small part of all scrap materials exported from Iraq to the other countries that border Iraq and further to Europe, North Africa and Asia," it said. UN inspectors were also told that "a lot of high quality industrial production equipment from facilities all over Iraq had been purchased by unnamed contractors at low cost, dismantled and moved out of the country," the report said, adding that this could include equipment subject to UN monitoring.
According to some scrap metal merchants, "the authorities in Iraq had overall control of the scrap export business," the report said. In scrapyards in Jordan, UN inspectors found 20 SA-2 missile engines in June that could be used in banned Al Samoud 2 missiles and four chemical-related vessels made of corrosion-resistant material that had been tagged.
Trading company representatives said the vessels were dismantled from the chemical industrial complex near Fallujah, 64 kms west of Baghdad, and U.N. inspectors confirmed this by comparing the serial numbers on the UN tags, the report said.
A Rotterdam scrap company discovered 22 additional tagged SA-2 missile engines in early July in a shipment from Turkey, it said. UN inspectors said Jordan and the Netherlands have agreed to allow them to observe the destruction of the engines and the other tagged equipment. The report criticised "the systematic removal" of items subject to UN monitoring from a number of sites.
Ping
BTTT
This is confusing; is this an old story?
This story circulated several months ago. Rockets have motors, BTW, rather than engines, except possibly liquid fuel rockets that have pumps. The pumps could be considered engines.
The Iraqi's flushed the "stash" down the toilet when the America military came in with a "No-Knock" search warrant.
Any asset left unguarded in the region, even brand new buildings will be looted and marketed to the winds in days if they get the chance. Part of the problem with energy transmission is that they steal the wire and poles as fast each night as the crews can put it up the previous day.
David Kay said there were no WMD's and everyone celebrated his wisdom. You can't have it both ways.
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