N.Y. Times: Iraq Had WMD 'Stockpiles' in 2003

NEWMAX.COM ^ | MARCH 13, 2005 | CARL LIMBACHER

[CyberAnt]

"the stuff is just about to turn up"

Well .. if Syria finally leaves Lebanon - the Bakaa Valley will be open for us to look - I presume we will be allowed in there. Maybe the NYT figured that out too and decided they better get with the program before it gets revealed and they are left with more egg on their face.

[alrea]

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

guessing that some UN folks tipped them that something is coming down the pipe. maybe even monday.

[SevenMinusOne]

I am so sick of hearing this "sophisticated equipment used to manufacture nuclear weapons, and other things". They are talking about low tolerance milling machines. There are companies in every industrialized city in the world that will do this for you. They are listed in the yellow pages. Give them a spec for a dumb metal flange part thing you want, and they will mill it and FedEx you the part back. Everyone wants low tolerance parts (.1 mm, or whatever) because that makes the thing you are building generally have a higher quality (golf cart, sewing machine, washing machine, etc). Any metal shop would love to have one of these $1 million machines for a black market $50,000; which is why they were looted!

Exactly right -

[Eagles6]

Check this link out for some interesting reading. http://www.worldthreats.com/middle_east/Syria.htm

All of this would explain why syria is pulling back to the bekka to wait and see what happens. Still far to early to know if syria will be shoved out of all of Lebanon.

[AmericanVictory]

Not too long after Tom Moorer died, General Gordon Sumner and I submitted an article pointing out this obvious fact to Tony Blankley at the Wash. Times. After an initial positive reaction from one of his assistants, we heard no more. Apparently, there was no interest in this obvious truth. The conservative establishment that has grown up is in some ways as impervious to truth as the liberal establishment.

[HardStarboard]

>>>is that it?<<<

Perhaps I should have put the tag of "{/sarcasm}" after my comments for those of you who take everything very literally.

[RinaseaofDs]

It also makes Syria's pullout of Lebanon sort of interesting.

What, in fact, did Syria do of late: pulled back to the Bekaa Valley, then withdrew into Syria.

Why stop in the Bekaa Valley?

[RinaseaofDs]

It's hard to loot something like this unless you have the equipment to trasport it. On top of that, the 'metal shop' that has one of these can't exactly advertise the fact in the yellow pages.

[village idiot]

Thanks for the link

[El Gato]

Everyone wants low tolerance parts (.1 mm, or whatever) because that makes the thing you are building generally have a higher quality (golf cart, sewing machine, washing machine, etc)

No they don't. Low tolerances generally make for more expensive machining and thus more expensive parts. You can get back some of that by a reduction of "fitting" during assembly and make make the basic design easier. OTOH, most Soviet military equipment was designed to use high tolerance parts, and to function with very loose fitting parts.

[AFPhys]

The first paragraph of the story from the NYT:

" Baghdad - 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. "

It sounds like this is NOT the standard milling machine you find in the local yellow pages - but rather "HIGH PRECISION EQUIPMENT" - sounds to me, after READING THE STORY, that NewsMax has it right, and the FACT that these machines were at nuclear, missile, chemical AND biological laboratories (as stated IN THE STORY) gives rise to reasonable questions as to what they were making --- and where have those items gone --- along with the disappearance of the machines themselves.