Posted on 03/03/2005 9:11:07 AM PST by FeeinTennessee
Russia Moved Iraqi WMD
Charles R. Smith Thursday, March 3, 2005
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.
Story Continues Below
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.
Moscow Paranoid About WMD
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."
Russian Chemical Weapons in Iraq
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.
Lebanon and Syria
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.
CIA Failed
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.
"There is a clear sense on how effective they were," noted Shaw.
"The fact that the CIA did not know shows just how successful the Russian operation was," he concluded.
RADIO AND TV SCHEDULE
Charles Smith will be on:
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/
You're about 5 months behind on this, this was mentioned all over the media, this was Kerry's October surprise and was proven to be pure BS. First, it was trumpt out to show that Bush has no control in Iraq and was proven false. The military accounted for the lost munitions since they used them to destroy some 500,000 tons of other munitions.
Second John Shaw has been removed from his position for corruption and there is an FBI investigation on him. He also had ZERO collaberating evidence, except for his opinion. Not much for a foundation, now is it?
Fee:
It was on Newsmax....was pretty interesting. So I posted it.
By the way, this is Newsmax, the same site that pimped "Col" Stanislav Lunov's book about how the secret shadow soviets were going to invade the US on Y2K. Wonder how much cash those two made. Lunov was a rifted KGB Colonel, who "escaped" the "soviet Union" in 1994 on an emmigration visa. He came over and started published BS for the paranoid and raking in the cash. Newsmax backed him to the hilt and still does some what. His books earn them a good royalty.
Propaganda floated by dems does not equal no WMD nor does it equal Bush being stupd.
True, he's not a felon yet, his trial hasn't comminsed. He is under FBI investigation for major corruption and was fired by DoD for it. And we all know OJ is/was innocent too.
JB6, I think you are referring to non-WMD munitions in various known munition dumps spread around the country. Kerry was not talking about the failure to secure the WMD's. The RATs won't admit that Saddam even had WMD's. Don't confuse the issue. Besides, there were contemporaneous reports about satelite photos of the trucks leaving Iraq for Syria. I suspect we had to distance ourselves for political reasons, since it was the French (arms supplier post Gulf war I, Germans (bunker builders post Gulf War I) and Russians (WMD supplier) doing the dirty deeds.
Bump
This is not to say that he wouldn't have built them again as soon as the sanctions were off. I'm very sure he would have.
But these BS stories all with foundations of opinions have been floating around for 2 years. Where is an ounce of proof? They work great for the democraps and their allies to beat on Bush, though.
That's right. The nukes are orders of magnitude more awesomely destructive. It's a different category.
Newsmax is not a very credible site.
Let's hear directly from John Kerry on this.
U.S. SENATE,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, October 9, 1998.
The President,
The White House, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. President: We are writing to express our concern over recent developments in Iraq .
Last February, the Senate was working on a resolution supporting military action if diplomacy did not succeed in convincing Saddam Hussein to comply with the United Nations Security Council resolutions concerning the disclosure and destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. This effort was discontinued when the Iraqi government reaffirmed its acceptance of all relevant Security Council resolutions and reiterated its willingness to cooperate with the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in a Memorandum of Understanding signed by its Deputy Prime Minister and the United Nations Secretary General.
Despite a brief interval of cooperation, however, Saddam Hussein has failed to live up to his commitments. On August 5, Iraq suspended all cooperation with UNSCOM and the IAEA, except some limited monitoring activity.
As UNSCOM Executive Chairman Richard Butler told us in a briefing for all Senators in March, the fundamental historic reality is that Iraq has consistently sought to limit, mitigate, reduce and, in some cases, defeat the Security Council's resolutions by a variety of devices.
We were gratified by the Security Council's action in unanimously passing Resolution 1194 on September 9. By condemning Iraq's decision to suspend cooperation with UNSCOM and the IAEA, by demanding that Iraq rescind that decision and cooperate fully with UNSCOM and the IAEA, by deciding not to conduct the sanctions' review scheduled for October 1998 and not to conduct any future such reviews until UNSCOM and the IAEA, report that they are satisfied that they have been able to exercise the full range of activities provided for in their mandates, and by acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, the Security Council has sent an unambiguous message to Saddam Hussein.
We are skeptical, however, that Saddam Hussein will take heed of this message even though it is from a unanimous Security Council. Moreover, we are deeply concerned that without the intrusive inspections and monitoring by UNSCOM and the IAEA, Iraq will be able, over time, to reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction programs.
In light of these developments, we urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraq sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.
Sincerely,
Carl Levin, Joe Lieberman, Frank R. Lautenberg, Dick Lugar, Kit Bond, Jon Kyl, Chris Dodd, John McCain, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Alfonse D'Amato, Bob Kerrey, Pete V. Domenici, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara A. Mikulski.
Thomas Daschle, John Breaux, Tim Johnson, Daniel K. Inouye, Arlen Specter, James Inhofe, Strom Thurmond, Mary L. Landrieu, Wendell Ford, John F. Kerry, Chuck Grassley, Jesse Helms, Rick Santorum.
www.iraqwatch.org/government/
US/Letters,%20r eports%20and%20 statements/levin-10-9-98.html
I have asked in this forum and have searched on the internet for an answer to this question, If Iraq did not have CBW at the time of the war what happened to them? Does anyone have an answer.
A summary of this issue is provided by:
http://www.iraqwatch.org/bulletins/vol2iss6nov03.htm
Volume 2, Issue 6
November-December 2003
Iraqi Weapons: Five Unanswered Questions
By Shabnam Faruki
"Despite the fact that no cache of mass destruction weapons has been found in Iraq, a number of crucial questions about Iraq's past weapon efforts - raised by nearly a decade of U.N. inspections - remain unanswered. ....
The existence of these unresolved issues cannot be taken lightly. ...... Below is a list of the top five concerns:
1. VX
The inspectors never could figure out what happened to 3.9 tonnes of VX, the deadliest kind of nerve gas. Iraq admitted producing VX in 1988 and 1990, but furnished no convincing evidence that it was destroyed in 1991, as Iraq claimed. This failure was not cured by an Iraqi report handed to inspectors in March 2003, which attempted to account for up to 63 percent of the missing VX.
2. Anthrax
The inspectors concluded that Iraq may not have destroyed about 10,000 liters of the biological agent anthrax, which if properly stored, could still be viable. Iraq admitted producing 8,425 liters of anthrax, but claimed it had disposed of all the agent in 1991, and provided inspectors with a series of technical reports aimed at substantiating the claim. However, the reports failed to prove exactly how much anthrax was disposed of.
3. Other Germ Warfare Agents
Iraq did not explain what happened to thousands of liters of other biological agent that it admitted producing, including more than 340 liters of clostridium perfringens - though inspectors concluded that Iraq had enough growth medium to have made "much larger quantities." This agent would still be viable today if properly stored. The inspectors were also unable to account for some 19,000 liters of botulinum toxin and at least 2,200 liters of aflatoxin. Neither of these agents would be viable today, but accounting for them is necessary to determine the total amount of germ agent and the individual amounts of each agent that Iraq produced.
4. Chemical and Biological Munitions
Iraq consumed 6,526 fewer chemical-filled aerial bombs - containing some 1,000 tons of agent (mostly mustard gas, but also sarin and tabun) - during the Iran-Iraq war than it claimed, according to the "Air Force document" handed over by Iraq in December 2002. Moreover, inspectors could not account for 550 mustard-filled artillery shells that Iraq claimed to have lost. The inspectors determined that Iraqi mustard gas was still of a very high quality. Also unaccounted for are 29 germ-filled bombs, some possibly containing anthrax."End quote
The voracity of Mr. Shaw's claim is questionable, but the theory is plausible.
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