NY Times: Iraq Had WMD 'Stockpiles' in 2003

News Max ^ | March 13, 2005 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[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.

[RottiBiz]

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.

I believe the NYT's underlying purpose for this article -- to once again blame the President -- can be found in this paragraph.

[Behind Liberal Lines]

See posts 34 and 64. This is not as pro Bush as made out to be.

[Carl/NewsMax]

"Wasn't supposed to have?" Actually Iraq was permitted to have a lot of "nuclear related" materials, including the tons of yellowcake, etc.

True. A lot. But not everything they had.

The IAEA allowed Iraq to retain some unranium at al Tuwaitha - although it's not clear to me they knew Saddam had 500 tons. But Saddam wasn't supposed to have the equipment to enrich it. That's why he ordered his nuke physicist, Dr. Mahdi Obeidi, to bury centrifuge parts in his backyard.

Under the subhead "Losses at Enrichment Site," The Times story also notes that "a manufacturing plant for the uranium enrichment program" had also been looted, and that "The kinds of machinery at the various sites included equipment that could be used to make missile parts, chemical weapons or centrifuges essential for enriching uranium for atom bombs."

If indeed Saddam was permitted to have that stuff, then that's the real scandal. But I doubt he was permitted.

The problem for the Times is, they're sounding the alarm now that all this material has gone missing. In doing so, they're either admitting that Saddam posed a serious WMD threat, or asking the reader to believe that the world was better off when Saddam himself had control of his nuke bombmaking materials.

[bitt]

no wonder the Syrians are willing to pull out of Lebanon, just up to the Bekka Valley...

[liberallarry]

The New York Times article

And from the article:

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...
...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...
...American military officials in Baghdad did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the findings. But American officials have said in the past that while they were aware of the importance of some of the installations, there was not enough military personnel to guard all of them during and after the invasion. White House officials, apprised of the Iraqi account by The New York Times, said it was already well known that many weapons sites had been looted. They had no other comment...
...Before the invasion, the United Nations was monitoring those kinds of sites.

What was more important than preventing nuclear proliferation?

[jpl]

What a blow to the credibility of the left-wing scum. We win again (what else is new).

[SolidRedState]

I believe the NYT's underlying purpose for this article -- to once again blame the President -- can be found in this paragraph.

You got that right. They may as well be saying..."OK Bush didn't lie, he just mucked things up really, really bad."

Of course, it could have been the Ruskies, carting it off to Syria, or Iran.

[cardinal4]

Where did Saddam get the IAEA "authorized" uranium? Certainly not Niger! Joe Wilson, the pinnacle of integrity and objectivity told us so!

[SeaBiscuit]

"Of course, it could have been the Ruskies, carting it off to Syria, or Iran."

That's the one I'd go with.

[EBH]

Agreed.

I'd be more skeptical as it's one source for this information, it's the Times, and well....

"if something bad happens in the future, it'll be the US fault for mismanaging the war, gads according to the Times they were in there with cranes moving stuff, how could the US miss this?"

Here we go again...first missing weapons and now missing WMD materials...they're going to have a field day with this.

[The Turbanator]

weapons, which was removed to "a neighboring state" before the U.S. could secure the weapons sites.

M.S.M. "it's all Bush's fault, why didn't he secure these weapons sites first?'

[SolidRedState]

Where did Saddam get the IAEA "authorized" uranium? Certainly not Niger! Joe Wilson, the pinnacle of integrity and objectivity told us so!

Ha, ha, Joe Wilson, ha!

[SolidRedState]

"Of course, it could have been the Ruskies, carting it off to Syria, or Iran." That's the one I'd go with.

Maybe both?

[hope]

Exactly...It's now convenient for the bastards to say this. Before, they knew they were already gone but, chose to use the "NO WMD's" theme for their campaign against the president.

[processing please hold]

I went back and read them and hit the link as well. They tried that dog and pony show once before about Bush letting it all get out of Iraq. It wouldn't fly then, it won't fly now.

Americans are finally getting hip to the game the MSM are playing and turning a deaf ear to them. Hence, the reason for all the Red states.

This is an admittance that WMD's were indeed in Iraq, and no amount of spinning from the left will be able to change that fact. They are attempting to fool some with a smoke and mirror game. Only the blue states will fall for it. They are the same people who think Bush put small nuclear bombs beneath the twin towers.

They are fighting for their survival now and they know it. As far as the MSM is concerned to me, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

[FreedomNeocon]

NO FAIR!!!

I (we) broke this story LONG ago.

Debka reported on it AS IT HAPPENED.

ALL detailed HERE: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1335591/posts

[FreedomNeocon]

From MAY 2003

-----------------------------------------
Powell Confronts, Assad Prevaricates
May 4th, 2003
http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=482

Syria is reported by DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources as having secretly disposed of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction by moving them into eastern Lebanon for burial in the Beqaa Valley. Iraq’s biological weapons may be there too. They were interred deep under the heroin poppy and cotton fields in two of the most fertile regions of Lebanon: the valley stretching between Jabal Akroum, the town of al Qbayyat and the Syrian border, and the land lying between the towns of Al Hirmil and al Labwah between the Orontes River and the Syrian frontier.

On February 14, about a month before the start of the war in Iraq, DEBKA-Net-Weekly Issue 97 ran an article captioned “Is Iraq’s WMD cache in Lebanon available to Al Qaeda?”

Now, our intelligence sources can disclose exclusively that the relocation of Iraq’s WMD systems took place between January 10 and March 10 and was completed just 10 days before the US-led offensive was launched against Iraq. The banned arsenal, hauled in giant tankers from Iraq to Syria and from there to the Bekaa Valley under Syrian special forces and military intelligence escort, was discharged into pits 6-8 meters across and 25-35 meters deep dug by Syrian army engineers. They were sealed and planted over with new seedlings. Nonetheless, their location is known and detectable with the right instruments. Our sources have learned that Syria was paid about $35 million to make Saddam Hussein’s forbidden weapons disappear.

Before US secretary of state Colin Powell arrived in Damascus on Saturday, May 3, the Syrians made the placatory gesture to Washington of speeding and upgrading the handover of Iraqi fugitives from the Saddam regime sheltering in Syria

DEBKA-Net-Weekly has learned from its most exclusive sources that on Monday, April 28, Dr. RihabTaha, a microbiologist known as Dr. Germ, was turned over to the Americans in Iraq. She had directed Iraq’s biological weapons program. Also turned over was Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, who headed Iraq’s anthrax project. No announcement was made of their capture. However, the surrender 24 hours later of Taha’s husband, General Amir Muhammed Rasheed, director of Iraq’s missile development program and best known by his nickname “The Missile Man”, was announced.

The United States is therefore fully apprised of the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein’s arsenal of unconventional weapons and has taken custody of the scientists who developed them.

But DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources say Washington was nevertheless far from placated and Powell’s meeting with the Syrian president Saturday was a confrontation. The secretary of state laid down the following demands:

1. A map with the coordinates of the pits holding Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

2. Surrender of Saddam’s most senior insiders who fled to Aleppo and Latakiya. After DEBKAfile blew the whistle on April 3, the group staying at the Cote D’Azur De Cham Resort in Latakia was whisked away leaving their families comfortably ensconced there.

3. Handover of the two senior Al Qaeda members now in Damascus. DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military and intelligence sources say their names and whereabouts were uncovered by US intelligence units in Iraq.

4. An explanation of Syrian motives in allowing two British terrorists, Assif Hanif, who blew himself up in Tel Aviv on April 30, and Omar Khan Sharif, who ran away, to transit Damascus en route to Israel. (One of the duo spent four months of preparation in the Syrian capital with the Hamas operations officer and associate of Hizballah Imad al-Alami, as reported exclusively by DEBKAfile.)

5. An immediate stop to the military-terrorist activities of the Lebanese Hizballah and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Syria and Lebanon. Failure to do so, Powell explained, will result in a painful tightening of economic pressure on Syria, after the loss of $1b in oil revenues from Baghdad.

Powell suggested that Assad invite Abu Mazen, the new Palestinian prime minister, to Damascus. This step would further underline Yasser Arafat’s state of isolation in view of his never having been received in Damascus. It could lead to an invitation from the Bush administration to invite the leaders of Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq’s new regime and the Palestinians to a regional conference that would set the stage for Syrian and Palestinian peace negotiations with Israel.

Powell told Assad bluntly to choose between confrontation and negotiations.

At the same time, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Middle East experts stress that Powell’s stance was tough yet exploratory. The Bush administration is still in option-weighing mode, pondering how best to proceed in the post Iraq war era to achieve its two main objectives: One is to advance America’s long-range strategic goals in the Middle East. The second is to get Bush re-elected as President in November 2004.

[MeekOneGOP]

bump!

[MeekOneGOP]

Just wait. By Bush's mandate to be OUT of Lebanon by May,
they will OUT by May, I betcha! :^D

[Modok]

I think that certain people at the NYT have known all along where the Iraq WMDs are at. Now that the WMDs are about to come to light they are hurrying to tear down what will be a great success by Bush. The WMDs are in Syrian hands but not in Syria.