Posted on 03/13/2005 5:53:53 PM PST by CHARLITE
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 Iraqi officials to start the process of accounting for the missing stockpiles still ostensibly under the agency's supervision.
Quoting Sami al-Araji, Iraq's deputy minister of industry since the 1980s, the Times 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."
Calling the operation "sophisticated," Dr. Araji said the removal effort featured "cranes and the lorries, and they depleted the whole sites," adding, "They knew what they were doing."
The top Iraqi defense official 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 WMD program.
Dr. Araji said that if the equipment had left the country, its most likely destination was a neighboring state.
The United Nations, worried that the nuclear material and equipment could be used in clandestine bomb production, has been hunting for it throughout the Middle East, largely unsuccessfully, the Times said.
Once the press began hammering President Bush about the "absence of WMDs in Iraq" by June of 2003, I heard Major General Paul Vallely say on Fox News, several times, that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and all components, machinery and many of the personnel involved with the programs had been systematically trucked out of Iraq, through Syria and then buried in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. If Vallely knew it, the NY TIMES and the rest of the MSM also knew it.
So did the Democrat leadership. This makes their mantra of "Bush Lied" all the more perfidious.
Some interesting comments on this earlier thread...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1361906/posts
Was this buried in the classified section?
Sophisticated? Ha! Easy as 123.
F'ing Slimes, will they correct themselves in their editorials? I'm going to hold my breath now.
NYT - I stopped reading right there. Must be lies.
Either the stuff is just about to turn up and the Slimes is attempting a little CYA, or else they're getting ready to hammer President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld about letting the WMDs fall into terrorist hands by failing to keep them from leaving the country. Probably both.
So now the President is not an evil man who lied to get us into war, he's just even more incompetent than we originally thought.
Actually, I don't think the NY Times as changed their mind. Note that this article is about UN monitored WMD. The UN was aware of several stockpiles before the war and inspected them before they were kicked out. I think those stockpiles are what the article refers to.
Where do we send the flowers?
any links to the actual Slines article??
Actually it's not even UN monitored WMD. It's UN monitored stuff that could be concievably be used to make WMDs, not actual WMDs.
Don't know if I have the patience to explain why Newsmax is hopelessly lost and clueless on this story.
I don't quite follow what Newsmax is saying.. the quotes don't seem to support the headline
LoL! I can't hold it as long as I use to. ;^)
The MSM got away with ignoring this; and it has passed the lips of every Demrat. The absence of WMD/s has made it -like every other Demrat lie - into MSM 'lore'; and our collective political history.
This misrepresentation was never seriously challenged by any Repub. . .even as Kerry Inc. repeated the abridged vesion of the truth, ad nauseum, throughout the presidential campaign.
Personally, blame Karl Rove and GW himself and the rest of the Repubs for not ever standing for the truth of this. . .except, occassionaly. . .and only, on one leg.
The NYT's report will pass; and the earlier, revised version of the truth will remain the core of Demrat offence. . .thanks to, too many Repubs; who perhaps thought, Rush could just tell the truth 'for' them. . .
My WAG ( wild ass guess) is that the removal of this stuff was a USA operation, carried out to a tee. See, it was bushes fault again!!!
bump
The Newsmax headline doesn't remotely match what was in the NYT story. Because either:
1)Newsmax is too stupid to understand the story
2) They're deliberately lying about it.
The NYT story basically states that a variety of openly declared dual-use manufacturing facilities and materials that could conceivably be used to make WMDs (not ACTUAL weapons) that were regularly inspected by the UN prior to Gulf War II and were NOT in violation of any UN sanctions, AFTER Baghdad fell, were looted and sold abroad.
What Newsmax and various people who either haven't read the NYT article, or are trying to spin it to what they want to believe, are claiming is that the NYT is saying there were a bunch of secret illegal WMDs that Saddam shipped abroad right before the war. The NYT is absolutely not claiming this.
I don't know if you are familiar with what is called "The Bible Codes" or not, but it also has said the exact same thing as to where these WMD's went/are.
I understand they also contain a killer recipe for Chicken Divan.
We attacked a nation without WMD - Bushs' fault!
We attacked a nation that had massive WMD but it was stolen as we got there -Bushes' fault!
We relyed on the lying scoundrels at the UN who told us that there was no WMD - Bushs' fault!
Neighboring rogue nations now have Iraq's WMD, and we're not going after it - Bushs' fault!
We haven't been able to suck up to Germany and France that transferred the WMD technology to Iraq for big Cash - Bushs' fault!
Afgan farmers who voted for democracy are still producing opium - Bushs' fault!
The six week old democracy in Iraq has not yet transferred all its power to whoever Iraq decides is going to be declared their leader - Bushs' fault!
Same old, same old, but now that after two years of the Slimes telling the world that there were no WMD, and everyone is on that bandwagon, the Slimes can now tell us that the Bush admin didn't lock-down all the WMD sites in the first few days of the war.
Bushs' fault!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.