Posted on 03/13/2005 1:14:45 AM PST by txradioguy
Looting at Iraqi Weapons Plants Was Systematic, Official Says
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 12 - In the weeks after Baghdad fell in April 2003, looters systematically dismantled and removed tons of machinery from Saddam Hussein's most important weapons installations, including some with high-precision equipment capable of making parts for nuclear arms, a senior Iraqi official said this week in the government's first extensive comments on the looting.
The Iraqi official, Sami al-Araji, the deputy minister of industry, said it appeared that a highly organized operation had pinpointed specific plants in search of valuable equipment, some of which could be used for both military and civilian applications, and carted the machinery away.
Dr. Araji said his account was based largely on observations by government employees and officials who either worked at the sites or lived near them.
"They came in with the cranes and the lorries, and they depleted the whole sites," Dr. Araji said. "They knew what they were doing; they knew what they want. This was sophisticated looting."
The threat posed by these types of facilities was cited by the Bush administration as a reason for invading Iraq, but the installations were left largely unguarded by allied forces in the chaotic months after the invasion.
Dr. Araji's statements came just a week after a United Nations agency disclosed that approximately 90 important sites in Iraq had been looted or razed in that period.
Satellite imagery analyzed by two United Nations groups - the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, or Unmovic - confirms that some of the sites identified by Dr. Araji appear to be totally or partly stripped, senior officials at those agencies said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Plus there are literally MILLIONS of pages still being analyzed from the Iraqi Central Intelligence facility.
That facility was under our control when I was there. You would not believe the MOUNTAINS of paper there is in that place.
Yeah, but they like to lie about things they know are classified and can't be known by the public - right up till the stuff is declassified. If memory serves, Kerry was specifically caught in that trap during the election..
Well let's not forget to we have had justification to march on Baghdad from the first time he violated the rules of his surrender.
It just took us awhile to get someone agin with some calcium in his spine to enforce those terms of surrender.
Plus these idiots who say "well Saddam wasn't threatening the U.S." are BS! Everytime he loosed a weapon or aimed a radar at one of our aircraft he was directly threatening the U.S.
I'm still amazed on an almost daily basis the lies about the whole situation that are passed of as fact and no one challenges what's being said.
FYI
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1323020/posts?page=1161#1161
HJ 114 IH
107th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. J. RES. 114
To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
OCTOBER 2, 2002
Mr. HASTERT (for himself and Mr. GEPHARDT) introduced the following joint resolution; which was referred to the Committee on International Relations
Frankly, if we'd let him bust the UN sanctions long enough he could have bought WMD from Libya and from North Korea. He was clearly going to be back in the market for WMD as soon as he could be. People are foolish if they believe he'd given up hopes of being armed with NBC weapons. But there are plenty of fools out there including the Russians who basically are building Iran a nuke and the EU that is basically enabling the Iranians to become a nuclear power while the EU in its insufferable arrogance runs interference. They'll all rue the day.
Ok. This backs up what I've been saying.
#26 also does.
And let's not forget either folks the Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998 that was passed without dissention into PUBLIC LAW saying that we were authorized to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein. A LOT of the justification for doing it in 1998 was the same in 2003.
Yes it does. Thank you Meg. :)
My computer has been in sick bay..I could 'borrow' another family member's at times but I was lost wthout my bookmarks! I saved that link..I love FR!
Now..I must go back, resign up for the NYT(I cleared my cookies) and read the rest of the story.
We have the satellite images, and Assad knows we have them. So far, the damage that these weapons have done to us has been wholly political. If those weapons had stayed in Iraq, how many thousands more American soldiers would have died by now?
The better way to make your point mellyK, would be to find evidence of the contrary, and you'd by hard pressed to find it, except from Saddam's bribe takers...and Al Jazeera.
The death toll in Iraq would be far greater if those weapons had remained in Iraq and been deployed against us.
I'm wondering if the evidence we have of Syria's compliance in all of this is the leverage we're using to force Assad to leave Beriut?
Strategery, y'know!
Wait a minute..I thought he had no nuclear capability!
I love this last dig (speculation reporting)by the NYT:
"Privately, officials of the monitoring commission and the atomic energy agency have speculated on whether the political uproar made Baghdad reluctant to disclose more details of looting."
Another thing too that needs to be factored intothe wquasion now is what rold did the U.N. inspectors play in helping the WMD's and their manufacturing capabilities disappear before our arrival?
We know Saddam was taking bribes from certain countries and from the U.N. itself in the Oil For Food program.
Could there have been some back scratching then on the part of the countries that sent U.N. inspectors to Baghdad to have them turn a blind eye to what was really going on and report that "all's well"?
Another snippet from he story:
"The disclosures by the Iraqi ministry, however, added new information about the thefts, detailing the timing, the material taken and the apparent skill shown by the thieves.
Dr. Araji said equipment capable of making parts for missiles as well as chemical, biological and nuclear arms was missing from 8 or 10 sites that were the heart of Iraq's dormant program on unconventional weapons. After the invasion, occupation forces found no unconventional arms, and C.I.A. inspectors concluded that the effort had been largely abandoned after the Persian Gulf war in 1991.
Dr. Araji said he had no evidence regarding where the equipment had gone. But his account raises the possibility that the specialized machinery from the arms establishment that the war was aimed at neutralizing had made its way to the black market or was in the hands of foreign governments.
"Targeted looting of this kind of equipment has to be seen as a proliferation threat," said Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, a private nonprofit organization in Washington that tracks the spread of unconventional weapons.
Dr. Araji said he believed that the looters themselves were more interested in making money than making weapons.
The United Nations, worried that the material could be used in clandestine bomb production, has been hunting for it, largely unsuccessfully, across the Middle East. In one case, investigators searching through scrap yards in Jordan last June found specialized vats for highly corrosive chemicals that had been tagged and monitored as part of the international effort to keep watch on the Iraqi arms program. The vessels could be used for harmless industrial processes or for making chemical weapons."
Yeah amazing the large amouts of DemocRATic crow being served at the Congressional Cafeteria these days because they misunderestimated W's strategery.
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