Posted on 03/13/2005 7:26:41 AM PST by MisterRepublican
In a stunning about-face, the New York Times reported Sunday that when the U.S. attacked Iraq in March 2003, Saddam Hussein possessed "stockpiles of monitored chemicals and materials," as well as sophisticated equipment to manufacture nuclear and biological weapons, which was removed to "a neighboring state" before the U.S. could secure the weapons sites.
The U.N.'s Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission [Unmovic], "has filed regular reports to the Security Council since last May," the paper said, "about the dismantlement of important weapons installations and "the export of dangerous materials to foreign states."
"Officials of the commission and the [International] Atomic Energy Agency have repeatedly called on the Iraqi government to report on what it knows of the fate of the thousands of pieces of monitored equipment and stockpiles of monitored chemicals and materials."
Last fall, IAEA director Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei confirmed that "nuclear-related materials" had gone missing from monitored sites, calling on the interim Iraqi government to start the process of accounting for the missing stockpiles still ostensibly under the agency's supervision.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
see my post down at the bottom. Newsmax is just twisting things.
The NY Times in no way was claiming there were chemical weapon stockpiles in 2003.
Newsmax did a very good job of selectively piecing together quotes from the article to try to prove their angle, but if you read the entire article, you see Newsmax is just up to their usual game of flat-out LYING.
Exactly. Although I would not call Newsmax stupid.
They know they are twisting the article to convince the gullible.
That is why they pieced together the quotes from the 4-page piece in the Times to try to present a coherent case that the Times claims there were stolen WMDs when that is not what the Times was saying.
Newsmax is pretty good at patching together quotes that are not related to try to make up stuff.
You are reading the article wrong.
Newsmax is just hyping up things up as usual.
REPEAT AFTER ME: THERE IS NO ABOUT-FACE.
At MOST, the NY Times article says the UN was wanting to know what happened to MONITORED CHEMICALS..i.e. stuff that was not in violation of UN resolutions but they were keeping track of it.
CHEMICALS......NOT CHEMICAL WEAPONS.
Newsmax is just once again lying to try to twist the facts and get readers.
Yeah, that is the stretch. There apparently was a large, coordinated, efficient effort planned in advance to get all this stuff out of the country if we invaded, so they knew:
A. Where to go (90 different sites, how many hidden?)
B. What they wanted (who had that knowledge?)
C. Where to take it (lined up ahead of time)
D. What equipment and manpower they needed (lined up ahead of time cranes and many many heavy trucks, fuel and manpower)
E. How to get it out of the country (TONS of machinery from 90+ sites, without being conspicuous)
Now, how exactly did this shadowy group get all this coordinated so well before the war, in a country with a dicatatorship that had spies literally everywhere? How was that possible?
Not only that, but they managed to loot 90 sites right under our very noses using cranes and lorries, all witnessed by govt workers and officials but not by us, and, managed to get the 'tons of machinery' out of the country over a several week period, again right under our noses. How exactly did all this happen?
The times says that the sites were left 'essentially' unguarded. What does that weasel word mean? It only takes one soldier to see cranes and truck carting stuff off to send up the red flag, so if anyone was at any of these 90 sites, the alarm would have been raised.
We in fact had no more wrapped up the invasion and we had troops swarming over all these sites for weeks looking for weapons. How did they manage to get all this stuff out while this intensive search was going on?
I am very curious as to how 90 sites were cleaned up in mere weeks in a very coordinated effort, who was involved, and how it was coordinated. That would take a massive amount of equipment and manpower. I am curious as to all that equipment got out of country without being a massive convey coming from various parts unknown and trying to get out of the few exits out of the country capable of such traffic, unseen. I am curious as to how al-Araji came upon this information.
Interestingly Dr. Sami al-Araji came up twice in Google, once about the Allies use of depleted uranium in an anti-US article in Le Monde, http://mondediplo.com/1999/06/08duarms. The other was in something called 'A Letter from Baghdad,' a propaganda article put out by the Iragi govt possibly and circulated on the left-wing websites (http://www.northside.greens.org.au/stuff_4.html) about the final UN inspections before the invasion.
It's also interesting that it was al-Araji that worked as the point man with the final UN inspection team and took them to the various sites. This means if there was any diversion or misdirection, al-Araji would have been the person carry out the orders of the regime. He was not in the 'deck of cards' issued by the U.S. for wanted Iraqi officials.
Meaning then that al-Araji would know most if not all of these 90 sites and what was in them. The question then is what does he know and when did he know it. He could have easily been one of the players in this dismantling operation, making you wonder if he is duping the NY Times in misdirection to get the issue out now and let the anti-US screeching drown out the real truth before it is uncovered. Being that he was a former Iraqi official, he is immediately suspect in terms of the ability to believe that he is telling the truth.
My guess is that this is a thin and desperate cover story for dismantling that occured BEFORE we invaded, maybe even being some kind of stalling measure so as to not speed up events even faster. With Lebanon in the process of being freed, we could be close to being able to get CIA and Spec Ops assets in the Bekaa valley easily to find the missing weapons. Meaning there may be time needed to get them out?
At any rate, there is more to this than meets the eye, and I don't think this is the end of this story, nor do I think we have seen the truth what what really happened.
Great analysis, jriemer! Thank you!
BTW, this is still damning for the liberal media, as they said that Saddam didn't have the capability to manufacture weapons. Apparently now he might have. They can still maintain the story of no WMD's, and maybe even blame Bush for losing the equipment, but they can't take back what they have said about Saddam's manufacturing capabilities.
I hope no one believes the trash the NYT's puts out. I'm not that stupid.
ping
Right!
That could be the new Game Plan ....would fit with their MO....
Wishful thinking I guess.
Officials of the commission and the atomic energy agency have repeatedly called on the Iraqi government to report on what it knows of the fate of the thousands of pieces of monitored equipment and stockpiles of monitored chemicals and materials.
NewsMax "quote" of NYT:
In a stunning about-face, the New York Times reported Sunday that when the U.S. attacked Iraq in March 2003, Saddam Hussein possessed "stockpiles of monitored chemicals and materials," as well as sophisticated equipment to manufacture nuclear and biological weapons, which was removed to "a neighboring state" before the U.S. could secure the weapons sites.
In what universe is that an accurate quote?
I think you nailed it....somewhat similar to the news reports that always cite how a dangerous SUV caused an accident, without mentioning the dangerous driver.....
Bush was concerned about the driver of the WMD program....
You are correct. NewsMax's interpretation of this article is wrong. READ THE ARTICLE FREEPERS!
.................... this may be an "in your face" to a lot of Dems. ;-)
I mean, where is any real new news,.....the news is only that the Slimes has repackaged the facts with some kind of follow on intent!
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