Explosives: A Shocking New Russian Wrinkle

INDC Journal ^ | 10/27/2004 | INDC Journal

[bobsunshine]

October 27, 2004 Explosives: A Shocking New Russian Wrinkle

(Flashback - That Russian Convoy) Where are the IAEA's missing explosives, along with other elements of Saddam's WMD program? It seems that the Russians might know:

Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned.

John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, "almost certainly" removed the high-explosive material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad.

"The Russians brought in, just before the war got started, a whole series of military units," Mr. Shaw said. "Their main job was to shred all evidence of any of the contractual arrangements they had with the Iraqis. The others were transportation units." ... The Russian arms-removal program was initiated after Yevgeny Primakov, the former Russian intelligence chief, could not convince Saddam to give in to U.S. and Western demands, this official said.

A small portion of Iraq's 650,000 tons to 1 million tons of conventional arms that were found after the war were looted after the U.S.-led invasion, Mr. Shaw said. Russia was Iraq's largest foreign supplier of weaponry, he said.

This gels with the previous assessment of a suspicious Russian presence in Iraq before and during the war, along with dubious Russian denials of any previous violation of UN sanctions:

March 24, 2003

Tensions increase between the United States and Russia. The United States charged the Russians of supposed deliveries of Russian weapons in Iraq. The spokesman of the American President, Ari Fleischer, rejected denials of Moscow and assured that Washington has "evidence" of these deliveries, which could give the Iraqis invaluable assets against the Anglo-American forces. Devices listed are binoculars for night vision, GPS units, and anti-tank missiles.

[bert]

There is another angle as well.

These explosives have some economic value in addition to the military value. It may have been prudent forthe Russians to visit the customers warehouse to remove the valuable and unpaid for explosive inventory, providing Saddam a credit memo for returned goods prior to the bankruptcy.

[A. Pole]

The devil is in the details of such discussions. The Russians needed to know what Kerry and his allies would do if Kerry is elected.

Here are the details spilled all over:
Frozen Conflicts: Time to Challenge Russia

[Grampa Dave]

"These explosives have some economic value in addition to the military value. It may have been prudent forthe Russians to visit the customers warehouse to remove the valuable and unpaid for explosive inventory, providing Saddam a credit memo for returned goods prior to the bankruptcy."

Someone posted last night on that long thread, that $oddomite owed Russia about 8 to 10 Billion $'s for such purchases.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for the history ping.

[Acrobat]

Why would Iraqi goverment allow the removal of its weapons before the war? It does not make much sense. Or maybe it was a covert sabotage to help US?

Remember this:
Saddam and Russia were quasi allies. Most of his weaponry was Russian. The inside discussions between them might indicated to Saddam that the US was absolutely going to invade. Russia doesn't want to be implicated, Saddam doesn't want justification for the war to be found

Saddam also believes (the idiot) that he will be able to hide and re-emerge in a post-invasion scenario (and he has money to reestablish himself). So he allows his pals to spirit off the truly bad stuff so he can regain his position, claim the US is a bully without threat of reinvasion.

[focusandclarity]

Fox News just had Dana Lewis (at the Kremlin) say the Russians say this event (the Russians helping Saddam spirit out WMDs and explosives) didn't happen. And our Pentagon is playing it (safe and/or close to the vest...Why don't they just give up the video survelliance tapes of Al Qaqaa and truck loads going to Syria, for gawd sake!!!) and saying Gertz's souce "Shaw" might not have been privy to this info. about the Russians. Here Shaw and Gertz are trying to get the "truth out" (I've never known Gertz to be wrong or sloppy) and they are being thwarted. This is so frustrating!!!!

[Valin]

What WMD?
/sarcasm

[bobsunshine]

Found the News Crew report mentioned that has a video of the bunkers with the 101st. What do you make of this stuff?

http://www.kstp.com/article/stories/S3723.html?cat=1

[Grampa Dave]

I don't know enough now to make any judgements.

[A. Pole]

Saddam also believes (the idiot) that he will be able to hide and re-emerge in a post-invasion scenario (and he has money to reestablish himself). So he allows his pals to spirit off the truly bad stuff so he can regain his position, claim the US is a bully without threat of reinvasion.

This would be a poor script good for one star movie.

[Caesar Soze]

(Eisenhower and Nixon keeping mum on the "missile gap" so as to protect U-2, etc.)

That was the same election in which Kennedy charged that Eisenhower and Nixon were weak on Castro, then had no idea what to do with the 2506 Brigade after he was elected. I wonder, if John Effin were to win, would he bungle up all the surprises that Dubya has been preparing for the enemy? Would we see long-planned, sensitive operations go down in flames because Effin needed to look tough on terror but really had no interest in prosecuting the war successfully?

[focusandclarity]

Read: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1259767/posts

and http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1259858/posts from this morning...The Russians were there in Baghdad

[jriemer]

Atlantic Friend wrote, "I have the feeling that today I'll take some perverse pleasure in quoting Dr Rice's word "Forgive Russia, ignore Germany, punish France".

GrampaDave wrote, "You can bet that the Russian intel has been monitoring every foriegn contact that Kerry has had in the last year. It is safe bet that Kerry would be buddies with the Islamofascists in the areas surrounding Russia. That would be a disaster for Russia."

Your two comments just shed a whole new light on Hillary Clinton's "Is it safe" statement in the Senate Armed Services Commitee.

If the it Hillary was talking about is Saddam's WMDs after a DOD briefing leading up to the Iraq invasion. That opens up a whole new realm of possibilities. This means the Democrats from 2003 to the present have a strategy of "Saddam doesn't have WMD and if there is evidence of WMDs and / or components, it was not secured by the US before, during and after the war." In this scenario, they could continue moving the bar to rob Bush of any military achievement gained on the field.

The Democrats and media have now transitioned to the "the weapons / explosives were stolen - not secured by the US" phase of the strategy. They assumed that any missing WMDs and / or components would be taken by terrorists; however they did not anticipate Russian involvement nor were they briefed on such.

[quant5]

"U.S. and Russia now have basic interests in common, most notably the threat of militant Islam and the potential threat of China. We need to work together as well as we can."

Russia and China have more or less formed a defense pact with Russia selling China billions of dollars of advanced missle, nuclear and navy capablities. Having them receive the gift of the Islamofascist curse makes me nervous, as they have no effective way to deal with this problem or the resources to combat it.

[Grampa Dave]

You are probably on target with what you posted below:

"If the it Hillary was talking about is Saddam's WMDs after a DOD briefing leading up to the Iraq invasion. That opens up a whole new realm of possibilities. This means the Democrats from 2003 to the present have a strategy of "Saddam doesn't have WMD and if there is evidence of WMDs and / or components, it was not secured by the US before, during and after the war." In this scenario, they could continue moving the bar to rob Bush of any military achievement gained on the field.

"The Democrats and media have now transitioned to the "the weapons / explosives were stolen - not secured by the US" phase of the strategy. They assumed that any missing WMDs and / or components would be taken by terrorists; however they did not anticipate Russian involvement nor were they briefed on such."

This is why it is so important that we Mondale Kerry in the election. If he is elected, the MSM will be revived and become stronger.

If he is defeated soundly, the MSM will have given itself a self inflicted and probably terminal infection with their lies and bias in this election cycle.

[bobsunshine]

Thanks.

It seems that this news crew that was embedded with the 101st has a story about bunkers (Channel 5 - ABC News). Appears that the bunker does contain explosives, but I thought either RDX or HMX would have been labeled as such. Take a look at the story and video. What do you make of the stuff?

http://www.kstp.com/article/stories/S3723.html?cat=1

[focusandclarity]

Thank you, will try to get video, have an older version of media player so might not work. Want to post your past posing about Shaw to my posting to "Who is John A. Shaw?
Unless you would like to post it there.

[backhoe]

[bobsunshine]

Not sure I posted about Shaw before, but you should post it here if you have it. The link Below is from the DoD about John Shaw, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense.

Article states: "Shaw is not now, nor has he ever been, under investigation by the DoD, IG".

Important because MSM might use previous stories about investigations to discredit him.

http://www.dod.mil/releases/2004/nr20040810-1103.html

[morkfork]

Do you really want the AP Gay Media mafia to go down???? Bad mental picture, bad mental picture