Posted on 11/15/2005 5:55:30 AM PST by conservativecorner
Bush officials have done such a poor job defending themselves against charges they lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction that even their supporters seem to have forgotten about some of the most compelling WMD evidence.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, for instance, keeps apologizing for his speech to the United Nations on the eve of the Iraq war. But at least one chilling bit of evidence he introduced there has never been refuted.
Here's how Powell introduced his case on Feb. 5, 2003:
POWELL: Let me begin by playing a tape for you. What you're about to hear is a conversation that my government monitored. It takes place on November 26 [2002], on the day before United Nations teams resumed inspections in Iraq.
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The conversation involves two senior officers, a colonel and a brigadier general, from Iraq's elite military unit, the Republican Guard. TAPE TRANSCRIPT:
IRAQI COLONEL : About this committee that is coming with [U.N. nuclear weapons inspector] Mohamed ElBaradei.
IRAQI GENERAL : Yeah, yeah.
COL: We have this modified vehicle. What do we say if one of them sees it?
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GEN: You didn't get a modified... You don't have a modified... COL: By God, I have one.
GEN: Which? From the workshop...?
COL: From the al-Kindi Company
GEN: Yeah, yeah. I'll come to you in the morning. I have some comments. I'm worried you all have something left.
COL: We evacuated everything. We don't have anything left. [END OF POWELL TAPE EXCERPT]
What type of "modified vehicle" do Iraq war critics think Saddam's general was worried about? A souped-up 1967 Mustang?
And what, pray tell, do they think Saddam's colonel was referring to when he said, "We evacuated everything. We don't have anything left"?
...Alia
They were talking about the dreaded SUV, the lefts' most dreaded WMD.
I have been reminding everyone of this very thing for weeks now when there is a "no WMD" thread and am glad to see you have the evidence!
ROFLMAO BUMP! I love it. Can you do this more often?
So, did anyone bother finding out from these two where they hid them. That would have been a good place to start. I know some speculate Syria, but these two seem to have some answers. I would be interested to find out what happened to them.
Want to tell us what thread that is?
I left my Ouija Board in my other pijamas...
Start here for a clue, and then I can find you more.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1521674/posts
Rove is going for all the marbles. At some future date, massive, irrefutable proof will be presented in spectacular fashion. The goal is to crush the credibility of the MSM, destroy it beyond repair, and swing the balance of media power to the New Media for the 2008 election cycle.
I can think of no other reason for the Bush Administration's seeming reluctance to promote its side of the story.
(steely)
My question is, "What did the Iraqis know about Sam Alito, and when did they know it?"
Something else to help you get a clue:
http://www.iraqwatch.org/wmd/iraqarticle2pg2.pdf
It'll take more than that to get "Georgie" abord the clue train.
You go to new articles and look for my site name. How hard is that?
From 1999:
DEPT. OF MASS DESTRUCTION:
Saddam's nuclear shopping spree.
by Gary Milhollin
The New Yorker
The Talk of the Town
December 13, 1999, p. 44.
Ever since the United Nations weapons inspectors were shut out of Iraq, a year ago, the world has been left to wonder what Saddam Hussein is up to. Well, now it can be told: he has been secretly trying to transform his desert dictatorship into a world-class center for the treatment of kidney stones.
Or so it would seem, to judge from his latest purchases on the international medical-equipment market. Although Iraq remains under a strict United Nations embargo, the embargo does not cover medical supplies. Last year, the Iraqi government ordered half a dozen lithotripters, which are state-of-the-art machines for getting rid of kidney stones. (The word "lithotripter" comes from the Greek for "stone breaker.") A lithotripter uses a shock wave to pulverize these painful objects without surgery. Machines like the ones Iraq bought require a high-precision electronic switch that triggers a powerful burst of electricity. In addition to the lithotripters, Iraq wanted to buy a hundred and twenty extra switches. That is at least a hundred more than the machines would ever need.
Iraq's strange hankering for this particular "spare part" becomes less mysterious when one reflects that the switch in question has another use: it can trigger an atomic bomb. According to a knowledgeable U.N. inspector, each bomb of the type that Iraq is trying to build requires thirty-two switches. Thus, a hundred of them would outfit three bombs. It is hardly a coincidence that, as the former U.N. inspector Scott Ritter testified at a Senate hearing last year, the inspectors had "intelligence information which indicates that components necessary for three nuclear weapons exist" in Iraq. Saddam Hussein has been shopping for what he needs to make sure they work.
Iraq went to Siemens, the German electronics giant, to place the order. Before the Gulf War, Iraq acquired Siemens computers and other equipment useful for processing uranium to nuclear-weapons grade, and the company provided electrical equipment for one of Iraq's main missile sites. (Siemens has denied helping Iraq advance its nuclear program.) In this instance, Siemens forwarded the switches order to its supplier, Thomson-C.S.F., a French military-electronics company. The French government promptly barred the sale. Stephen Cooney, a Siemens spokesman, refuses to say whether Siemens nevertheless filled the switch order, or even whether the order was placed. If Siemens made the deal, Iraq got a powerful nuclear boost.
The Clinton Administration has been relatively quiet on Iraq lately. Although it maintains that it remains suspicious of Saddam, it claims to have no specific evidence that he has resumed his efforts to build weapons of mass destruction. The kidney-stone affair suggests otherwise.
The U.N. inspectors have learned that Iraq's first bomb design, which weighed a ton and was just over a yard in diameter, has been replaced by a smaller, more efficient model. The inspectors have deduced that the new design weighs only about one thousand three hundred pounds and measures about twenty-five inches in diameter. That makes it small enough to fit on a Scud-type missile. The inspectors believe that Iraq may still have nine such missiles hidden somewhere.
The inspectors have also concluded that Iraq's bomb design will work. Iraq, they believe, has mastered the key technique of creating an implosive shock wave, which squeezes a bomb's nuclear material enough to trigger a chain reaction. The new design also uses a "flying tamper," a refinement that “hammers" the nuclear material to squeeze it even harder, so bombs can be made smaller without diminishing their explosive force.
How did Iraq progress so far so quickly? The inspectors found an Iraqi document describing an offer of design help—in exchange for money—from an agent of Pakistan. Iraq says it didn't accept the offer, but the inspectors think it did. Pakistan's latest design also uses a flying tamper. Regardless of how the Iraqis managed to do it, Saddam Hussein now possesses an efficient nuclear-bomb design. And, if he did succeed in getting hold of the necessary switches, then the only thing he lacks is enough weapons-grade uranium to fuel the warheads.
The fuel, unfortunately, is getting easier to find. United States officials report that on May 29th Bulgaria seized approximately a third of an ounce of weapons-grade uranium at its border. The hot cargo, accompanied by documents in Russian, was concealed in a lead container in a pump stowed in a car. A third of an ounce is not enough for a bomb (Iraq's design, for example, needs thirty-five pounds), but this seizure and others like it show that weapons-grade fuel is beginning to circulate in the black market. Unless the U.N. Security Council can agree on a plan to reinstate meaningful inspections, Saddam may be able to complete his nuclear shopping sooner rather than later.
You figuring it was the 67 Mustang?
Well, actually there *was* Sarin and VX found. Just not in enough quantity to call a "stockpile". But 500 tons of yellowcake sounds like a lot to me.
But even given the stuff we've found, the most important part is the facilities and the programs and Saddam's willness to pursue them and inevitably distribute them to terrorists.
That's the part that is confirmed to no longer be there. Suits me.
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