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.
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 think you are right. A game is being played here.
Everyone in the know, knows what happened, but there must be reasons for it to be played out this way.
Maybe so the Russians aren't embarrased by the story. maybe the "blackmail" which will prevent them helping Iran too much, maybe the lever to get the Syrians out of Lebanon etc.
ie "We know where the weapons are hidden and if they get found in territory you control nothing will save you".
ping to post on al-Araji
This reads just like the Al Qaaqa missing tons of dangerous weapons story the NY Times ran right before the election.
As you noted the Al Qaaqa weapons 1) most likely went missing before in the run up to the war 2) and that given the US presence in the area once the war began, it was virtually impossible for that volume of material to have been carted off with the US tanks blocking road access 3) and this was not ‘new’ news but was known for months but published eight days before the election due to what many thought was political motivations of the NY Times and El Baradei of IAEA.
What is interesting about the reappearance of this story after its post election disappearance is its timing. Byron York in NRO just published a piece on 2/28/05 called –
Remember Al Qaqaa? With the election over, the New York Times forgets its big scoop.
'snip'
Why was the Al Qaqaa story so important in the eight days leading up to the election that it merited two stories per day, and so unimportant after the election that it has not merited any stories at all?
The Times's "public editor," Daniel Okrent, told National Review Online that he has raised the question, at least in a general sense, with the paper's editors. Those editors, Okrent explained, believe that the story has been fully reported. "Their version is pretty much, 'What did we have to add to the story? The story held up,'" Okrent told NRO.
Nevertheless, Okrent believes there are aspects of the Al Qaqaa story that merit following up. There is, for example, the still-unanswered question of where all those highly dangerous munitions ended up. "I do think there is the matter of where did this stuff go," he told NRO.
http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200502280821.asp
So this was a follow up to demonstrate that, of course, the Al Qaaqa articles were not politically motivated. But the NY Times still has not bothered to vet whether the arms could have been moved from the various other noted locations after the war had begun without US awareness. The NY Times still does not acknowledge that the Al Qaaqa site was emptied prior to the war.
The other interesting thing is the revelation of a source -- a former Baathist government minister, Dr. Araji. Was he the earlier source? Was this information available since a couple of months post invasion also and just being released now? Why? And most important, is his information reliable especially vis-à-vis the timing of the looting or whether it was looting at all or a systemized retreat in the face of a looming invasion. Does Dr Araji, a former Baathist, have his own agenda?
The article mentions several times that the weapons might have landed in Syria (or Iran), impliedly due to US neglect in securing them. With the possibility of US action in Syria looming, is this some kind of prelude to an outcry over any US action in Syria, ie US military action causes proliferation, makes the situation worse? Or a warning that Syria is too dangerous and should not be provoked? Or am I just paranoid.