There were never any WMD's. We don't know anyone who has WMD's. We cannot even spell WMD's.
Posted on 06/03/2005 8:26:59 AM PDT by robowombat
Weapons Equipment Missing In Iraq Associated Press June 3, 2005
UNITED NATIONS - U.N. satellite imagery experts have determined that material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles has been removed from 109 sites in Iraq, U.N. weapons inspectors said in a report obtained Thursday.
U.N. inspectors have been blocked from returning to Iraq since the U.S.-led war in 2003 so they have been using satellite photos to see what happened to the sites that were subject to U.N. monitoring because their equipment had both civilian and military uses.
In the report to the U.N. Security Council, acting chief weapons inspector Demetrius Perricos said he's reached no conclusions about who removed the items or where they went. He said it could have been moved elsewhere in Iraq, sold as scrap, melted down or purchased.
He said the missing material can be used for legitimate purposes. "However, they can also be utilized for prohibited purposes if in a good state of repair."
He said imagery analysts have identified 109 sites that have been emptied of equipment to varying degrees, up from 90 reported in March.
The report also provided much more detail about the percentage of items no longer at the places where U.N. inspectors monitored them.
From the imagery analysis, Perricos said analysts at the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission which he heads have concluded that biological sites were less damaged than chemical and missile sites.
The commission, known as UNMOVIC, previously reported the discovery of some equipment and material from the sites in scrapyards in Jordan and the Dutch port of Rotterdam.
Perricos said analysts found, for example, that 53 of the 98 vessels that could be used for a wide range of chemical reactions had disappeared. "Due to its characteristics, this equipment can be used for the production of both commercial chemicals and chemical warfare agents," he said.
The report said 3,380 valves, 107 pumps, and more than 7.8 miles of pipes were known to have been located at the 39 chemical sites.
A third of the chemical items removed came from the Qaa Qaa industrial complex south of Baghdad which the report said "was among the sites possessing the highest number of dual-use production equipment," whose fate is now unknown." Significant quantities of missing material were also located at the Fallujah II and Fallujah III facilities north of the city, which was besieged last year.
Before the first Gulf War in 1991, those facilities played a major part in the production of precursors for Iraq's chemical warfare program.
The percentages of missing biological equipment from 12 sites were much smaller - no higher than 10 percent.
The report said 37 of 405 fermenters ranging in size from 2 gallons to 1,250 gallons had been removed. Those could be used to produce pharmaceuticals and vaccines as well as biological warfare agents such as anthrax.
The largest percentages of missing items were at the 58 missile facilities, which include some of the key production sites for both solid and liquid propellant missiles, the report said.
For example, 289 of the 340 pieces of equipment to produce missiles - about 85 percent - had been removed, it said.
At the Kadhimiyah and Al Samoud factory sites in suburban Baghdad, where the report said airframes and engines for liquid propellant missiles were manufactured and final assembly was carried out, "all equipment and missile components have been removed."
UNMOVIC is the outgrowth of a U.N. inspections process created after the 1991 Gulf War in which invading Iraqi forces were ousted from Kuwait. Its staff are considered the only multinational weapons experts specifically trained in biological weapons and missile disarmament.
The report noted that the commissioners who advise UNMOVIC again raised questions about its future. Iraq has called for its Security Council mandate to be terminated because UNMOVIC is funded from past Iraqi oil sales and it wants to be treated like other countries, but the council has not taken up the issue.
France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said Thursday the commission's expertise "should not be lost for the international community."
Tony Snow has mentioned this several times on his show this morning. Thanks for the article.
Here we go again... see Bush's fault.
And Syria just test fired a SCUD...hmmmmm....connection?
Bush sympathizers will see this as proof that the WMDs were there, but removed and hidden before or during the early stages of the war, Critics will say the war caused previously secured items to be lost.
These UN people just can't get their shit straight can they? First they tell us that Saddam had WMD and was a threat. We go to war over it, Then they said they found no WMD and now they are saying equipment to make WMD is missing. Does this mean Bush gets an apology? /Sarcasm
Maybe they should expand their search to Syria.
Syria has had their own SCUDs for about 30 years.
The key aspect is that all dual-use equipment wasn't banned nor illegal for Iraq to have, as long as it was regularly inspected.
There were no weapons of mass destruction! The democrats said so! Don't suppose the stuff went to Iran and Syria do ya.
Understood...but that doesn't mean they don't have all the Iraqi SCUDS, which went "missing". As well as the chemical warheards for them.
Syria has had SCUDS for a long time...but SADDAM had his own variant.
There were never any WMD's. We don't know anyone who has WMD's. We cannot even spell WMD's.
Weapons? What weapons? I thought there were none.
By the UN, wasn't it?
Read between the lines. They found something and want to downlay it before it hits the papers.
I am willing to bet that the Miltary dismantled this stuff and put it somewhere so no one gets at it. I still submnit that we know where the WMD is and is not saying anything because it is politically cheaper to say there were no WMD's then have the libs and the press say, "how do we know we have them all?"
"Critics of the war will say the war caused previously secured items to be lost"
Critics of the war also say that Saddam's weapons programs posed no threat. This material is only a threat to them if they can blame Bush for its loss. Don't try to follow the logic of Bush's critics. It will only give you a bad headache.
If the UN is monitoring and aware of this, it's darn sure the US is doing the same and more.
The AP didn't bother to check with US officials to get their comments?
Dual-use equipment presents the opportunity for the game we've been seeing played since the whole thing started - if we ship organic phosphates to Saddam, it's nerve gas; if it's found there afterward it's insecticide. The two tons of enriched uranium is a little harder to dismiss, but they did. You can't win this game.
LOL! Good one.
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.