Posted on 02/22/2006 11:40:16 AM PST by pissant
WASHINGTON - Ever since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Bush administration has come under heavy criticism for its inability to find Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
Now some experts are saying that those WMDs did exist, but that they are not in Iraq anymore.
The 2006 Intelligence Summit, a three-day event held this weekend outside Washington, D.C., featured a who's-who of counter-terrorism and national security experts. One of them, Bill Tierney, worked as a U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq.
On Saturday, he provided translations of tapes featuring Hussein and other high-ranking Iraqi officials discussing Iraq’s secret WMD program.
In one of the tapes, Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, said that a biological weapons attack would be the easiest to arrange, and that "anyone could do it. They wouldn't finger us." In another tape, recorded in 2000, an aide tells Hussein that a factory had been built to produce plasma. Plasma is used in making nuclear weapons.
The tapes were recorded during the mid-1990s and later, showing, Tierney says, that despite the damage inflicted on his regime by Operation Desert Storm and U.N. sanctions, Hussein continued to pursue an illicit WMD program, with a little help from his friends.
“Saddam and Tariq Aziz are on tape talking about France and Russia helping them. C'mon, it's time to stop being the world's sucker,” Tierney remarked.
According to experts at the summit, Russia not only helped Iraq build its wmd capabilities, it even helped Saddam dispose of them. Jack Shaw, a former top Pentagon official who tracked Iraq's weapons programs, revealed for the first time his view that Russian Special Forces Units helped move Iraq's wmds to Syria and Lebanon, prior to the U.S. invasion in 2003.
Shaw said, “The short answer to the question of where the WMDs Saddam bought from the Russians went, was that they went to Syria and Lebanon, along with the most powerful explosives in Saddam's arsenal.”
They were moved by Russian Spetsnaz units, out of uniform, which were specifically sent to Iraq to move the weaponry and eradicate any evidence of its existence.
Yossef Bodansky agrees. Bodansky is the former director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism, and author of The Secret History of the Iraq War.
“The major case where the Russians were involved was the evacuation of the forces--the entire Iraqi arsenal,” said Bodansky, “not just WMD, but also artillery pieces, tanks, troops, etc., that were arrayed for the defense of Baghdad, once Saddam Hussein realized that the game was all over.”
Bodansky says that the Bush administration knows that Hussein's WMDs are in Syria but doesn't want to open another front in the war on terror. Still, why not use this information to answer Howard Dean and other critics, who insist that Hussein had no WMDs?
Retired General Thomas McInerney, a Fox News military analyst, says that one reason could be that the administration wants Russia's help in the war on terror.
McInerney said, “Why would you put your quote ‘allies’ in an awkward position in the war on terror? I think that's probably why this has not been pursued.”
From a political point of view, it is probably a mistake. From a diplomatic point of view and going forward, it probably is not.
One expert told CBN News that thousands of more hours of Hussein's secret tapes may still be unaccounted for. And with them, perhaps, the answer to what really happened to Iraq's elusive WMDs.
A thin veneer of politeness on top of sneering scorn.
;-)
It is the Friday following the Intelligence Summit weekend. A few minor mentions (misinformation) on CNN. A few interviews on Fox.
That's it.
No headlines, no breaking news.
Saddam HAD wmd's!!!!!
How can this news be ignored by the media?
How?
How much time has been spent on the Bush Lied mantra, cherry picking of intelligence, bogus intelligence, on and on.
Saddam HAD wmd's!!!!
the silence is deafening.
Can someone please give me an explanation that makes sense. Not the standard 'msm is biased'. For god sakes, it didn't even warrant a 'FOX NEWS ALERT'. Am I to believe, as the lefty's are saying (laughing really), that the translations are bogus, that if it were true, Bush and Co. would be shouting it from the roof tops!, Help. I really need to understand this.
Thanks.
Now some experts are saying that those WMDs did exist, but that they are not in Iraq anymore.
So.......................
iraq got rid of them, wasn't that what was asked of them?
The Russian embassy informed the coalition that they were moving their embassy staff to Syria. US Central Command spokesman Brigadier General Vincent Brooks himself said the coalition military was aware the convoy was leaving. It makes a good story that the convoy was moving WMDs out of Iraq. The convoy contained the Russian ambassador.
§¯d|<elieve that what was asked of Saddam was that he show proof that they had been destroyed, NOT that they had been smuggled out of the country, with the help of Russia, to Syria, where they had a great chance of being divied out to the terrorists.
Hannity promised to have Tierney back to talk about the tapes AFTER the summit was over and 'the world' had been informed. Did that ever happen and I missed it?
I'm disappointed that it took until post #11 for someone to note that.
Why is it that news organizations don't have someone with at least a semi-technical background vet articles of this nature?
Shouldn't the "war on terror" be aimed at russia and syria?
"Shouldn't the "war on terror" be aimed at russia and syria?"
I am no war strategist, but I believe that all things considered, those 'in the know', must consider the long-term, bigger picture as regards Russia. IMO, however, should we need to take action against Iran, action will also be taken against Syria. Sort of a two-fer. Just my opinion.
One friend of mine tells me that it wasn’t Saddam that did anything wrong in the last few years it was his sons, thus bush lied.
> Why is it that news organizations don't have someone with at least a semi-technical background vet articles of this nature?
Same reason why Hollywood tends to either not have good technical/science advisors (or ignore them when they do have them): the writers don;t understand the science, don't know how to incorporate it, can't be bothered in any event, and facts tend to get in the way of the story.
Yes, that likely pretty well sums it up.
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