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 ...
Ha! Ha! Ha! What are the "Bush Lied" DUmmie crowd going to have to say about this! LOLOL!!!
Am I hallucinating, or does the word "monitored" actually exist in the story?
I cannot fathom why this is being treated as a big deal.
Anyone have a link to the NY Times story. I'd like to have that to rub some people's faces in it.
From this NYT story: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/international/middleeast/13loot.html?ex=1111294800&en=2908f890e8beb814&ei=5065&partner=MYWAY
Is this one of those "joke" posts? Come on...spill the beans...good chuckle. ;-)
Please BUMP, pretty please?
And keep it BUMPED!
other news:
Good point! Darn, I was hoping it was good news. But you're probably right.
Rub their faces in what, exactly? About declared and UN-monitored stuff being in Iraq before the war? This is news, how?
Only for the NY Times would this be news.
Ah, nevermind, found a link
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050313/ZNYT03/503130457
The article from the NY Times is written in such a way as to obscure the point that THIS article makes. No surprise there.
1) It's not "WMD" its materials that could have been conceivably related to making them.
2) It was openly known and declared material that inspectors regularly came by and inspected.
3) It wasn't in violation of any UN resolutions.
4) It didn't go missing till after the war.
The Times story is about it being moved AFTER the invasion....this looks BAD on US.
"U.N.'s Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission"
Well, I'm probably an idiot for never having heard of this organization but the whole name itself sound like a gigantic rambling oxymoron...
found the article:
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050313/ZNYT03/503130457
Looting at Iraqi Weapons Plants Was Systematic, Official Says
By JAMES GLANZ and WILLIAM J. BROAD
New York Times
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. Those officials said they could not comment on all of Dr. Araji's assertions, because the groups had been barred from Iraq since the invasion.
.....'
Yeah, this is one of those wishful thinking delusional threads it's impossible to stop with reason on FR. Oh well.
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