Russia moved Iraqi WMD (not surprised)

Moscow Moved Weapons to Syria and Lebanon According to a former top Bush administration official, Russian special forces teams moved weapons of mass destruction out of Iraq to Syria.

"I am absolutely sure that Russian Spetsnatz units moved WMD out of Iraq before the war," stated John Shaw, the former deputy undersecretary for international technology security.

According to Shaw, Russian units hid Saddam's arsenal inside Syria and in Lebanon's Bekka valley.

"While in Iraq I uncovered detailed information that Spetsnatz units shredded records and moved all WMD and specified advanced munitions out of Iraq to Syria and Lebanon," stated Shaw during an exclusive interview.

"I received information from several sources naming the exact Russian units, what they took and where they took both WMD materials and conventional explosives. Moscow made a 2001 agreement with Saddam Hussein to clear up all Russian involvement in WMD systems in Iraq," stated Shaw.

Shaw's assertions match the information provided by U.S. military forces that satellite surveillance showed extensive large-vehicle traffic crossing the Syrian border prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Shaw's information also backs allegations by a wide variety of sources of Russia's direct involvement in Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. One U.N. bioterrorism expert announced that Russia has been Iraq's "main supplier of the materials and know-how to weaponize anthrax, botulism and smallpox."

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Robert Goldberg cited former U.N. weapons inspector Richard Spertzel, who stated that Moscow supplied Baghdad with fermentation equipment to produce biotoxins.

According to Spertzel, the Russians on the U.N. inspection team in Iraq were "paranoid" about his efforts to uncover smallpox production.

Goldberg noted that no country has "done more to rebuild" Saddam's chemical and biological weapons programs or "been more aggressive in helping hide the truth" than Russia.

It is a fact that Saddam Hussein rose to power backed by Russian weapons and Russian money. Saddam was in debt to Moscow for over $8 billion for the arms he purchased from Russia when he was captured by U.S. forces.

The primary Iraqi chemical weapons were VX nerve gas and mustard gas, a blistering agent, both obtained from Russia.

According to the book "Russian Military Power," published in 1982, "It is known that the Soviets maintain stocks of CW (chemical weapons) agents."

The two primary Russian chemical weapons in the 1982 Soviet inventory were the nerve agent "VX" and "blistering agents - developments of mustard gas used so effectively in World War I."

Iraq did most of its WMD killing using Russian-made MiG and Sukhoi aircraft equipped with chemical sprayers. In addition, Saddam used French-made artillery and helicopters to dump gas on Iranian troops and Iraqi Kurds.

Iraq obtained Russian delivery systems and the same inventory of Russian-made chemical weapons at the same time. Iraqi SU-22 Fitter attack jets were armed with Warsaw Pact-designed bombs filled with chemical weapons. Iraq used these Russian jet fighters to drop chemical weapons on Iranian troops during the Iran-Iraq war.

Iraq tried to use these SU-22 jets during the 1991 Gulf War, but they were detected and destroyed on the ground before they could launch a deadly chemical attack.

Other Russian weapons found with chemical weapons include the FROG-7 missile, 122 mm rockets, 152 mm artillery and the M-1937 82 mm mortars. All the Iraqi artillery missiles, rockets, shells and mortar rounds filled with chemical weapons are of Russian design.

Iraqi forces were trained by Russians in the use of chemical weapons and equipped by Russia with anti-chemical suits. The Iraqi armed forces were trained, equipped and supplied with the proper logistics to perform chemical warfare by Russia.

The arming of Iraq with such weapons has a direct impact on events today in the Middle East. The presence of former Iraqi WMD systems in Lebanon raises serious questions surrounding the Feb. 14 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Many blame Syria for Hariri's murder.

However, the possibility that Hariri discovered the location of the Iraqi WMD systems inside his country lends some credible backing to a Syrian assassination effort to silence him.

In addition, the sudden sale of advanced missile and other weapons to Damascus by Moscow also supports the allegation that Syria is hiding something for Russia.

Russian weapons makers have previously insisted on hard, cold cash payments for their missiles, especially after the fall of Saddam and the collapse of credit deals done with Baghdad. More importantly, the Syrian economy is in bad shape, making it difficult for Damascus to come up with the required money for advanced Russian weapons.

Instead, it now appears that Moscow has extended both very good terms and no down payment required to Syria for an extensive purchase of advanced missiles and weapons. This is in contrast to weapons sales to other "good" Russian customers such as China, which can afford to pay up front for weapon systems.

There is no question that the Russian effort to remove Iraqi WMD systems was the most successful intelligence operation of the 21st century. The Russians were able to move hundreds of tons of chemical, biological and nuclear materials without being discovered by CIA satellites or NSA radio listening posts.

"The fact that the CIA did not know shows just how successful the Russian operation was," he concluded.

The Jerry Hughes Show on Friday, 3/4/05, at 3 p.m. Eastern time. Show information at http://www.cilamerica.com.

The Charlie Smith Show on the American Freedom Network on Monday, 3/7/05, at 11 a.m. Eastern time. Show information at http://www.americanewsnet.com/

Bill Gertz from the Washington Times has given the Bush Administration an "October Surprise".

Due to high traffic, Wash. Times' link to the story is down. However, I have managed to find a copy.

By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES

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."Mr. Shaw, who was in charge of cataloguing the tons of conventional arms provided to Iraq by foreign suppliers, said he recently obtained reliable information on the arms-dispersal program from two European intelligence services that have detailed knowledge of the Russian-Iraqi weapons collaboration.

Most of Saddam's most powerful arms were systematically separated from other arms like mortars, bombs and rockets, and sent to Syria and Lebanon, and possibly to Iran, he said.The Russian involvement in helping disperse Saddam's weapons, including some 380 tons of RDX and HMX is still being investigated, Mr. Shaw said.

The RDX and HMX, which are used to manufacture high-explosive and nuclear weapons, are probably of Russian origin, he said.

Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita could not be reached for comment.The disappearance of the material was reported in a letter Oct. 10 from the Iraqi government to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Disclosure of the missing explosives Monday in a New York Times story was used by the Democratic presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry, who accused the Bush administration of failing to secure the material.

Al-Qaqaa, a known Iraqi weapons site, was monitored closely, Mr. Shaw said."That was such a pivotal location, Number 1, that the mere fact of [special explosives] disappearing was impossible," Mr. Shaw said. "And Number 2, if the stuff disappeared, it had to have gone before we got there."The Pentagon disclosed yesterday that the Al-Qaqaa facility was defended by Fedayeen Saddam, Special Republican Guard and other Iraqi military units during the conflict.

U.S. forces defeated the defenders around April 3 and found the gates to the facility open,the Pentagon said in a statement yesterday.

A military unit in charge of searching for weapons, the Army's 75th Exploitation Task Force, then inspected Al-Qaqaa on May 8, May 11 and May 27, 2003, and found no high explosives that had been monitored in the past by the IAEA.

The Pentagon said there was no evidence of large-scale movement of explosives from the facility after April 6."The movement of 377 tons of heavy ordnance would have required dozens of heavy trucks and equipment moving along the same roadways as U.S. combat divisions occupied continually for weeks prior to and subsequent to the 3rd Infantry Division's arrival at the facility," the statement said.

The statement also said that the material may have been removed from the site by Saddam's regime.

According to the Pentagon, U.N. arms inspectors sealed the explosives at Al-Qaqaa in January 2003 and revisited the site in March and noted that the seals were not broken.It is not known if the inspectors saw the explosives in March. The U.N. team left the country before the U.S.-led invasion began March 20, 2003.

A second defense official said documents on the Russian support to Iraq reveal that Saddam's government paid the Kremlin for the special forces to provide security for Iraq's Russian arms and to conduct counterintelligence activities designed to prevent U.S. and Western intelligence services from learning about the arms pipeline through Syria.

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.However, the most important and useful arms and explosives appear to have been separated and moved out as part of carefully designed program. "The organized effort was done in advance of the conflict," Mr. Shaw said.

The Russian forces were tasked with moving special arms out of the country.Mr. Shaw said foreign intelligence officials believe the Russians worked with Saddam's Mukhabarat intelligence service to separate out special weapons, including high explosives and other arms and related technology, from standard conventional arms spread out in some 200 arms depots.

The Russian weapons were then sent out of the country to Syria, and possibly Lebanon in Russian trucks, Mr. Shaw said.

Mr. Shaw said he believes that the withdrawal of Russian-made weapons and explosives from Iraq was part of plan by Saddam to set up a "redoubt" in Syria that could be used as a base for launching pro-Saddam insurgency operations in Iraq.

The Russian units were dispatched beginning in January 2003 and by March had destroyed hundreds of pages of documents on Russian arms supplies to Iraq while dispersing arms to Syria, the second official said.Besides their own weapons, the Russians were supplying Saddam with arms made in Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria and other Eastern European nations, he said."Whatever was not buried was put on lorries and sent to the Syrian border," the defense official said.

Documents reviewed by the official included itineraries of military units involved in the truck shipments to Syria.

The materials outlined in the documents included missile components, MiG jet parts, tank parts and chemicals used to make chemical weapons, the official said.

The director of the Iraqi government front company known as the Al Bashair Trading Co. fled to Syria, where he is in charge of monitoring arms holdings and funding Iraqi insurgent activities, the official said.Also, an Arabic-language report obtained by U.S. intelligence disclosed the extent of Russian armaments.

The 26-page report was written by Abdul Tawab Mullah al Huwaysh, Saddam's minister of military industrialization, who was captured by U.S. forces May 2, 2003.The Russian "spetsnaz" or special-operations forces were under the GRU military intelligence service and organized large commercial truck convoys for the weapons removal, the official said.

Regarding the explosives, the new Iraqi government reported that 194.7 metric tons of HMX, or high-melting-point explosive, and 141.2 metric tons of RDX, or rapid-detonation explosive, and 5.8 metric tons of PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate, were missing.

The material is used in nuclear weapons and also in making military "plastic" high explosive.Defense officials said the Russians can provide information on what happened to the Iraqi weapons and explosives that were transported out of the country. Officials believe the Russians also can explain what happened to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs.

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