Posted on 10/28/2004 10:20:59 PM PDT by Destro
News Analysis by TWD's Editor, Shane Cory.
Missing Weapons? Blame the Russians
October 28, 2004 09:43 AM
The Washington Times dropped to the bottom of the integrity scale by leading with a story that definitively blamed the loss of hundreds of tons of high explosives (HE) on the Russian military. Their story was based mainly on the views of one controversial Pentagon staffer, John A. "Jack" Shaw.
Earlier this year Shaw was reportedly involved in a controversy involving the former Iraqi golden boy and now criminal, Ahmed Chalabi. The scandal involved the awarding of cell phone contracts to three companies with close ties to Chalibi. According to the L.A. Times, he was put under investigation by the FBI.
From reports of Shaw, it would seem that this government employee runs fast and loose. When investigating a contracting matter, he allegedly was refused entry into Iraq and then dressed up as a Halliburton employee in order to gain entry into the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtondispatch.com ...
You need to sign up for a course in reading comprehension, Destro. I never made any such claim about the Libertarian Party.
The FBI investigation was launched when Jack Shaw discovered and disclosed the illegal activity by Chalabi. And that is exactly opposite of what you and your Libertarian Party source tried to sell in that phony "news story" you posted.
Give it up, Destro, by posting that phony story, you've "outed" yourself as an agent (and a dishonest one at that) for the Libertarian Party and their efforts to undermine George Bush's leadership in the GWOT.
--Boot Hill
Post a link to back your claim up. What you posted is not supported by the evidence.
It sounds to me like you're asking for instructions on how to click on a link, like the one I gave you in post #33. Since you're having trouble with such basics, I'll post it for you here.
DoD Statement on Jack Shaw and the Iraq Telecommunications ContractNow what was that silliness of yours about "What you posted is not supported by the evidence"?For several months there have been allegations in the press [that would be the July 7th LA Slimes story] that activities of John A. Shaw, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for International Technology Security, were under investigation by the Inspector General of the Department of Defense (DoD IG). The allegations were examined by DoD IG criminal investigators in Baghdad and a criminal investigation was never opened.
Furthermore, attempts to discredit Shaw and his report on Iraqi telecommunications contracting matters were brought to the attention of the DoD IG and were accordingly referred to the FBI.
Shaw carried out his duties in the investigation of Iraqi telecommunications matters pursuant to the authorities spelled out in the Memorandum of Understanding between the DoD IG and the Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. Shaw provided a copy of his report to the DOD IG and, at the request of the Coalition Provisional Authority, to the Iraqi National Communications and Media Commission.
Shaw is not now, nor has he ever been, under investigation by the DoD IG. Any questions concerning FBI activities should be addressed to the FBI. (source) (emphasis and bracketed comments added by Boot Hill)
You knowingly posted a Libertarian Party hit piece about Bush that was fraudulently disguised to appear to be a news story and you got caught. Then just like Dan Rather, you suggested that we should ignore the fraud and look at what the article's claims. Well, Destro, now you have the evidence you claimed wasn't there, and you just got caught again.
In other words, genius, the July LA Slimes article was a hit piece, too! You really are a glutton for punishment, Destro. Do you want some more?
--Boot Hill
Because a conflict of interest prevents DOD from investigationg. "Any questions concerning FBI activities should be addressed to the FBI." In other words we don't want to get involved - as the FBI - How comforting for Shaw.
This time he really stepped into when you consider the 'testimony' of the US troops who actually moved the munitions from 'ka ka'.
Rush was ranting about Gertz one day, and the next day ranting about US munitions troops. Rush is being played like a fiddle.
I have said it before - this false story was planted by a group with a vested interest of some kind - they wanted to hurt Bush - because of his relationship with Russia? I don't know - but the story was fishy from a fishy source and what sucks is that so many on our side bought into it.
The question is, are "rogue" elements responsible for violating the UN arms embargo, or is Russia working with it's "former" allies to conduct a new Cold War under the radar screen? I lean towards the latter. Russia also provided lists of assassins to take out Saddam's detractors in Europe and elsewhere. After you read the article below, it is no small wonder Saddam contracted with freelance terrorists to blow up Radio Free Europe (they failed...would be terrorist defected to England and spilled the beans)!!!
Arming Iraq (So Much for the UN Embargo)
Radio Free Europe (RFE/RL Analytical Reports) ^ | 14 April 2003 | Roman Kupchinsky
14 April 2003
SPOTLIGHT ARMING IRAQ By Roman Kupchinsky
In September 1990, a United Nations arms embargo was imposed on the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. By denying him new weapons and the means to modernize and service the weapons he already had, the UN intended to prevent him from carrying out acts of aggression against other countries and his own population.
Almost as soon as those sanctions went into effect, the Iraqi regime went shopping for arms. It did not go to the Arab world, which saw Hussein as a pariah and would not supply his needs, but to his old supplier, the former Soviet bloc. Hussein's agents and arms buyers had numerous contacts in this part of the world, and both sides shared two traits: a love of money and a hatred for the United States.
Iraqi delegations soon began arriving in the capitals of former communist countries, where huge stores of weapons were lying unguarded in massive stockpiles waiting to be sold on a "first come, first served" basis. The Bulgarians held some $800 million worth of arms in such stockpiles, according to a report by Human Rights Watch in April 1999 (http://hrw.org/reports/1999/bulgaria). Impoverished military personnel did not necessarily concern themselves with trivial matters like sanctions.
In Bulgaria, a country with an advanced arms industry, Iraqis rapidly began purchasing what they wanted. In 1992, they bought $15 million worth of arms from the Bulgarian company Kintex on the basis of false end-user certificates, according to "Forbes" magazine of 10 May 1993. Portuguese arms trader Jose Saldanha was quoted in the same article as saying, "They don't give a shit about embargoes and will sell anywhere."
In 1995 and 1996, Kintex shipped 20 Mi-24 Hind attack helicopters to Iraq in containers, according to "Forbes" of 10 May 1993. The Hinds had been purchased in either Russia or Ukraine. According to "The Moscow Times" of 27 March, the CEO of the Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant in 1997 told Russian journalist Pavel Felgenhauer that he had sent technicians from Moscow to Baghdad in 1996 to assemble the Hinds and prepare them for operation.
"The Chicago Tribune" of 3 April 2003 reported: "In 1995 authorities in Jordan intercepted 30 crates of 115 Russian-made gyroscopes removed from long-range missiles and being shipped from Russia to Karama, Iraq's missile development center, according to 1997 congressional testimony from the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center.
"Russia at first denied involvement but then told the State Department that it could not determine who made the shipment."
On 11 November 1997, "The Washington Times" reported that Iraq was aiming to buy the Tamara stealth-detecting radar system from the Czech Republic by working with Bulgarian arms traders who were in league with Czech Defense Ministry officials. The deal was halted under U.S. pressure on the Czech Republic. Three years later, Iraqi intelligence approached the Ukrainian arms trading company UkrSpetzExport during an arms exhibition in Amman, Jordan, to buy a similar but reportedly improved item, a Ukrainian-made Kolchuga radar, also with anti-stealth capabilities. Covert tape recordings suggest that Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma approved the sale as a covert operation, but Kuchma denies that the Kolchuga was ever shipped to Iraq.
The Kolchuga was not the only military item the Ukrainians had that interested Iraq. Numerous documents found in Iraq by UN weapons inspectors point to numerous items for which delivery contracts had been signed between Ukrainian firms and Iraq, including gyroscopes for missile-guidance systems. According to an article in "Commentary" magazine on July/August 2001 by Gary Milhollin and Kelly Motz, Ukrainian involvement in the arms trade with Iraq goes back to 1993.
In the current conflict in Iraq, the U.S.-based magazine "Newsweek" reported on 31 March that Iraqi forces used Russian-made Kornet missiles to destroy two U.S. Abrams tanks, citing unnamed Pentagon officials who claimed that "Ukrainian arms dealers" sent some 500 Kornets to Baghdad in January. Those charges were vehemently denied by Ukrainian authorities, who claimed it was impossible for anything of the sort to get past Ukrainian export controls.
Russian officials, including military strategist Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, who has been highly critical of the West in the past, denied U.S. allegations that Russia sold any of its missiles to Iraq, and a spokesman for the Tula factory that manufactures the missile told ORT television in Russia, "None of our products are in Iraq; otherwise, coalition losses would be much higher."
The former Soviet republic of Belarus, ruled by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, is another major supplier of arms to Iraq. Belarus acts as a direct supplier, a training ground for Iraqi personnel, and a surrogate dealer for Russian weapons.
According to "Jane's Intelligence Digest" of 28 March, Lebanese intelligence officers in January were tipped off by their Western counterparts that a large consignment of innocently labeled cargo at Beirut airport that had arrived from Belarus in fact contained military equipment. The 12 tons of equipment subsequently discovered included 600 helmets, army uniforms, 240 wireless-communication sets for tank crews, and other military items that had arrived aboard a flight from Minsk on 12 January (see "Jane's Intelligence Digest," 12 January 2003). Investigations revealed that the military equipment was destined for Iraq and was being shipped via Syrian middlemen. Belarusian officials denied that the material had originated in Belarus but accepted that Minsk, like Syria, might have served as a transit country. Lukashenka, Russia's closest ally in the Commonwealth of Independent States, described the Lebanese accusations as "thoughtless and senseless statements."
The former chairman of the Belarusian Supreme Soviet, Stanislau Shushkevich, wrote in the "Narodnaya Volya" newspaper (No. 55) that Belarus is not selling arms directly but is being used by Russia as a channel for arms sales to Iraq because "Belarus does not have and cannot have such weapons in sufficient quantities."
Russian arms sales to Iraq were vehemently denied by Russian officials after U.S. accusations in March that Russian companies sold GPS jamming devices to the Iraqis. But those allegations are not new. The "Financial Times" on 8 February reported that Russian suppliers attempted to sell Igla surface-to-air missiles to Iraq through cover purchases in neighboring countries such as Syria. On 23 February, "The Sacramento Bee" reported that Russian-made S-300P missiles had been sold to Iraq by a Russian-Belarusian company. Accusations in "The Moscow Times" of 27 March that Moscow sold Kornet guided, antitank missiles to Iraq using Yemen as a false end user, all might seem credible in this context.
The seeming pattern of Russian sales and deliveries to Iraq suggest a vast covert operation might have been undertaken by the Russian intelligence service to supply Saddam Hussein. Utilizing criminal arms dealers, fake end-user certificates, and Belarusians and Ukrainians as surrogates, Russia seems to have been a major supplier of arms to Iraq for over a decade.
It is no simple task to sell large quantities of weapons to Iraq. These items must be shipped to a third country, clear customs, and then be transported to Iraq. In order for such schemes to work, considerable bribes need to be dished out, and an organization needs to be in place to arrange secure transportation. Without the help of the Iraqi intelligence service, the Mukhabbarat, the undertaking might seem all but impossible. In those cases, the Russian intelligence service might have covertly lent a hand to arms dealers. This, after all, was the intended plan for getting the Ukrainian radars to Iraq ?-using the intelligence service, which could bypass export-control mechanisms and arrange for the secure shipment to Iraq.
http://www.rferl.org/reports/corruptionwatch/2003/04/12-140403.asp
The cult of Rev. "Jesus Christ" Moonie?
"Black market = Russian Cold War plot?"
That has always been the Soviet/Russian M.O. They arm and support our enemies via the "black market", and they oppose our efforts in the UN, the EU, and elsewhere. Just because they are bombing the Chechens does not mean they are our friends. We need to take a strong stand against Russia/Putin and Red China (who keeps threatening to invade our friend Taiwan). They are the two most dangerous nations in the world today, IMHO.
Therefore under your paranoid logic Bush is a dupe then and you will vote for Kerry who promised to crack down on Russia?
Have you seen the latest from Gertz?
"2 Russian Generals Given Awards in Iraq on War Eve"
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1262550/posts
Given such a schedule (3-4 trips a year), it is almost beyond doubt that Achalov and Maltsev, as well as, possibly, other retired Soviet and highly placed Russian military personnel were giving advice to Iraq as it prepared its army for imminent war.
Old news. They were mercenary advisors. Judging by the performance of the Iraqi army - poor ones at that.
"If President Bush was under any illusions before, he isn't anymore."
LOL! It's just NOW that W sees the light? C'mom, man!
Bill Gertz wrote the article detailing Russian complicity in Qaqaa-gate, not the Moonies. Bill Gertz is a highly respected defense and national security reporter with a 19 year long track record at the Washington Times of successfully breaking stories on important intelligence matters. He has written three books on national intelligence matters and is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University.
By your continued reference to "Moonies", are you claiming that Bill Gertz is a Moonie? Are you claiming that the Moonies exercise editorial control over what Bill Gertz writes for the Washington Times?
Your attempts to keep raising this red herring of "Moonies", and linking them to the content of Gertz's reporting, is as pathetic as your own track record of posting fraudulent "news articles" here on FR.
--Boot Hill
Why not? Since all Russians are Soviets to your crowd?
See how excited they get with one unsubstantiated source - because it reconfirms their world view. Why not? Just a guys opinion presented as fact which reinforces their opinion - nothing more.
Cite credible evidence for your claim.
--Boot Hill
See your cohort's words @ #51.
Bzzzzt, wrong answer, fraud-man. There is no mention of either "Moonies" or "Gertz" in that post.
Now, for the second time, please cite credible evidence for your claim that Bill Gertz is a Moonie.
Cite or shut up.
--Boot Hill
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