Posted on 11/16/2005 10:51:27 PM PST by WhistlingPastTheGraveyard
Saddam's Ex-KGB Connection? (The Pacepa Accusation)
www.townhall.com ^ | August 23, 2003 | Jay Bryant
An article by Ion Pacepa, which appeared in Thursday's Washington Times is much too important to simply be left to stand alone.
Pacepa charges that General Yevgeny Primakov, a former Prime Minister of Russia and onetime head of the Soviet foreign intelligence service, ran Saddam Hussein's weapons program and personally oversaw the liquidation of the evidence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Pacepa doesn't quite say it directly, but his article implies that Russian President Vladimir Putin was aware of and approved Primakov's role in the WMD disappearance program.
If all this is true, it is the most important news about Iraq since the fall of Saddam's government, for two reasons: first, it indicts the anti-American axis of old Europe in complicity not just to prevent us from getting too big for our britches, but in a willingness to prop up the most dreadful dictator since Stalin in the process.
Second, it provides the real answer to the embarrassing question: why haven't you found any WMD's?
Who is this Ion Pacepa, and why should we believe him? Once deputy chief of Romanian foreign intelligence, he defected to the U.S. in 1978. He remains the highest- ranking intelligence officer ever to defect from the Soviet Bloc.
To me, that pedigree means two things: he knows a lot about intelligence, and he knows how to lie.
Is he lying about Primakov? Or perhaps he's not exactly lying; but perhaps his theory is simply wrong.
Here is Pacepa's case. The Soviets and their allies always had a "standard operating procedure" for getting rid of weapons of mass destruction. Pacepa himself implemented the S.O.P. in Libya.
Saddam had such a procedure in place; Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu "told me so," Pacepa says, and so did Primakov, who "in the late 1970's…ran Saddam's weapons programs." There is a problem with this assertion, because Saddam did not officially come to power until July of 1979, and Ceausescu certainly was not chatting up Pacepa after the latter's 1978 defection. However, Saddam was the power behind the throne of his cousin General Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, who assumed control of Iraq in a 1968 coup d'etat, so it all may be true at least de facto, if not de jure. But Pacepa needs to explain just how this part of the story works to have real credibility.
Primakov, according to Pacepa, worked with Saddam throughout the latter's reign, and it is true that he was closely involved with the Iraqi leader in 1991, earning the enmity of the administration of Bush the Elder.
Primakov's closeness to Saddam is attested by other sources as well. In 1999, when the general was Russian Prime Minister, journalist Seymour Hirsch published an article in the New Yorker alleging that Primakov had received an $800,000 Iraqi bribe hand-delivered by Tariq Aziz.
But the truly important piece of information in Pacepa's story is this: that Primakov was in Baghdad with two other former Soviet generals, Vladislav Achalov and Igor Maltsev, "from December [2002] until a couple of days before the war."
I have confirmed that he was there at least part of that time. On February 24, 2003, Condoleezza Rice was asked by a reporter what she thought Primakov was doing in Baghdad.
She didn't know, but she knew he was there, and referenced his parallel 1991 visit in her answer.
If Primakov spent anything like the three months before the Iraqi War in Baghdad, it is patently obvious that he was up to no good, and logical, given his expertise, to believe his mission may well have been orchestrating the deep-sixing of Saddam's WMD stockpile.
The worldwide press should pick up this story, investigate it thoroughly, and if it vets out make it front page news for a long time. They should smoke out Primakov – and his two cronies, too, perhaps even more so – and ask them to explain what they was doing on the banks of the Tigris in the winter of '03. Whatever lie they tell in answering, reporters should follow up on, disprove and write another week's worth of stories.
Putin, too should be made to feel the heat of this investigation. Primakov, Achalov and Matlsev may have been there on their own, without Putin's imprimatur, but I doubt it, and anyway, Putin should be put on the record with that claim, if he chooses to make it.
The world (not to mention the Democrats) is beating the Bush Administration about the head and shoulders with the accusation that there are no WMD's in Iraq. If the reason is because General Primakov implemented an old Soviet plan and liquidated the whole stockpile, then the world needs to know it.
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So you think the other Newsmax story has legs?
It would be nice, but I won't hold my breath waiting for that to pan out.
We should start a new mantra to counter the "Bush lied" mantra: WMD were moved out.
Thankfully, it's a Weekly Standard story, by Stephen Hayes. I believe it will have legs. I think the White House is going to force the issue with this one.
If it exists, it would be interesting.
I was glad they had five months to move the weapons out rather than doing a doomsday tactic which would have killed huge numbers of people.
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Russia would easily be the broker of this with Iran involved aswell.
Israel has satellite pass coverage of newly overturned fields in the Bekka allong with other places in Syria.
Hezbollah had been handling the goods too....and screwed up..as their have been several massive detonations with ambulances racing to hospitals.
In one instance it appears Hezbollah wanted a dry run on start up...and blew themselves to kingdom come.
Its a bit of a lull now concerning missiles,Russia and salivating Moon children.
Ex Soviet/ Ukrainian KH 55 cruise missiles in the possesion of several mideast nations hints they have been given a toy waiting for nuclear warhead mating.
IAEA even caught Egypt with signatory breaking isotope at their facilities...indicating that Cairo was interested in mating something...to something.
A.Q. Khan may have given more away than we imagine.
Cruise missile is a better deal than ballistic trajectory.
Israel can breathe a sigh of relief inthat U.S. has a fairly good handle on any shinanigans attempted by Pharaoh.
Syria and her ageing scud fire chain are more likely a decent IAF outing with a challenge.
Israel sends regrets to Erikkison cellular for blowing away their cell repeater system in Syria and the Lebanon.
yet...there is concern down the road.
and should the rats get back in the whitehouse.
tunnels in mountains and underground will be busy like bee hives in the land of the moon children.
Mylroie: "..the source of the near-universal belief that Iraq had WMD
Bio-Chemical Weapons & Saddam: A History.
UN Confirms: WMDs Smuggled Out of Iraq
Saddam's WMD hidden in Syria, says Iraq survey chief
Annan met with UN reform pointman Yevgeny Primakov in Moscow when Oil-For-Food scandal broke
So, one way or another, the decision to invade Iraq DID lead to the termination of Saddam's WMD programs.
Who cares whether THEY dumped them, or WE confiscated them?
The result was the same - terminated.
Why can't the White House sell this simple message?
And that's not a partisan issue; that Iraq won't have the capability to target US bases in Europe with NBC missiles is a good thing for America. That development was given if left unchecked.
And now we're learning where they were moved!
Copied & saved- thanks!
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