This is an amazing article. Here's some more excerpt:
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In short, the intelligence from around the globe strongly suggested that Hussein still had WMD. As is always the case with intelligence work, it wasn’t 100% certain. However, the CIA Director did refer to it as a “slam dunk”. This was based primarily on the fact that we know he did have them, had even used them. Hussein was ordered by numerous UN Resolutions and a cease fire agreement from 1991 to destroy all of them and “provide evidence that they had been destroyed”, including full unfettered verification by UN inspectors. This simply did not happen… and every UN inspection report ever written on the subject says so.
There remained a large cashe of WMD unaccounted for by UN inspectors for years. These unaccounted for WMD remained at issue after 9/11 and nobody could confirm the whereabouts of Iraq’s missing WMD, previously catalogued by UN inspectors themselves. After Hussein failed for the 17th time to provide evidence of their disposal, the Bush administration acted to implement the regime change policy established in 1998.
We also know that Senator Jay Rockefeller traveled to Syria less than four months after 9/11 to advise Hussein’s allies that he believed Bush was intent upon invading Iraq. See Rockefeller’s Treachery.
We know that following that trip, CIA operatives reported Iraqi military convoys carrying something across the Syrian border and this became the centerpiece of Colin Powell’s case to the UN Security Council, including satellite images of the convoys. It was later reported by The World Tribune on August 26, 2003, “U.S. intelligence suspects Iraq's weapons of mass destruction have finally been located. Unfortunately, getting to them will be nearly impossible for the United States and its allies, because the containers with the strategic materials are not in Iraq. Instead they are located in Lebanon's heavily-fortified Bekaa Valley, swarming with Iranian and Syrian forces, and Hizbullah and ex-Iraqi agents.”
By June of 2004, The World Tribune reported “The United Nations has determined that Saddam Hussein shipped weapons of mass destruction components as well as medium-range ballistic missiles before, during and after the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 2003. The UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission briefed the Security Council on new findings that could help trace the whereabouts of Saddam's missile and WMD program.”
“The briefing contained satellite photographs that demonstrated the speed with which Saddam dismantled his missile and WMD sites before and during the war. Council members were shown photographs of a ballistic missile site outside Baghdad in May 2003, and then saw a satellite image of the same location in February 2004, in which facilities had disappeared.”
So is it true? Did U.S. and world-wide intelligence agencies have it all wrong? Or did we simply arrive in Iraq after the vast majority of unaccounted for WMD had been systematically moved outside of Iraq?
Then there is the little matter of what we did find in Iraq, which nobody including the President wants to discuss. On June 23 of 2004, U.S. Forces found and removed 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium from a nuclear facility in Iraq. The Department of Energy, according to spokesman Bryan Wilkes, cataloged the removal of radioactive materials in “powder form” (easily deployed and dispersed), the worst kind of WMD post 9/11.
Tipped off by Iraqi citizens, the Polish Military spent $5000. a pop to purchase seventeen chemical-weapons warheads buried in the sand, in an effort to keep them off of the black market and out of the hands of terrorist organizations operating in Iraq. These warheads tested positive for “cyclosarin”, a nerve agent reportedly five times the strength of “sarin”.
In addition, U.S. troops found 1500 gallons of chemical agents in a Mosul warehouse in August of 2005. There are more incidents, but you get the point. These are all WMD, some of the very WMD we were concerned could end up in the wrong hands and all found in Iraq.
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But of course they wouldn't have made the same offer to Saddam.
hmmm
"So is it true? Did U.S. and world-wide intelligence agencies have it all wrong? Or did we simply arrive in Iraq after the vast majority of unaccounted for WMD had been systematically moved outside of Iraq?
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I'd say we arrive after it was moved outside of Iraq. With the help of Chiraq and others giving Saddam time to bury or move incriminating evidence.
Now if only the democrats would do something more than picking on Bush for doing his job.
Good post, PlainOleAmerican. Don't mind the itchy trigger-fingers.