Saddam Regime Document Dated 2001 Shows Chemical Platoon Still Exists And Active (Translation)

Pentagon/FMSO website about Iraqi Pre-War Document ^ | March 25 2006 | jveritas

[jveritas]

Document CMPC-2004-000404 dated 2001 indicates that Saddam Regime still has an Active Chemical Platoon in Al Qadisia Air base. In fact the first page of the document lists the results “open tournament” i.e. “open training tournament” for the members of the Chemical Platoon. Page 8 and Page 9 show tables that list the status of “Specialized Vehicles” used by the Chemical Platoon. On the top of Page 9 the year 2001 is shown and this prooves that this document was written in 2001. Also page 8 and page 9 show the name and signature of the same guy who is the Commander of the Chemical Platoon at Al Qadisia Air Base, his name is Captain is Mohamad Taha Hassan. The remaining pages show the name of soldiers and their vacation time.

This document is a clear indication that Saddam never stopped his WMD program at least up to the year 2001 as the document show because there was still and active Chemical Platoon in Al Qadisia Air base.

Partial Translation from Page 8 that list a table of the Specialized Vehicles of the Chemical Platoon and its status

The Status of the Specialized Vehicles for the Chemical Platoon the command of Al Qadisia air base

1. The type of Vehicle: Surface vehicle, The Working Status: Working.

5. The type of vehicle: Shower vehicle, The Working Status: Working.

End of Partial Translation

The Shower Vehicle is of course used to clean the member of the Chemical Platoon from any Chemical Residuals.

[BlueStateDepression]

One angle I would like to offer as to this tidbit.
I would like to know if this platoon and its activities and equipment were DECLARED.

I offer that could be a good pointer to their actual purpose. Defensive units would have been declared and inspected....as they posed no WDM threat....right?

[drhogan]

i think that makes a lot of sense.

[drhogan]

i was responding to some of the claims made on this thread which involve speculation about the actual meaning of this specific document (as opposed to the translation of the words in the document).
saddam apparently modeled himself consciously on stalin. all of the people working closely with saddam would probably know basic stalinist disinformation techniques. anybody could have written this document for any purpose.
i think it makes a lot of sense to translate such documents. however, it isn't me that's running ahead on this--i think the claims made about the meaning of the document are running ahead.
what seems weird to me is that people seem to think they know what this document really means. there seem to be all sorts of possible interpretations, and i think that trying to claim that a specific interpretation is the correct one, is jumping ahead of the evidence.

[FreedomPoster]

That's a *.mil site.

That's a pretty good indication it's the real deal.

[BlueStateDepression]

What would it take for you to decide what the correct interpratation is?

Even if one document alone does not constitute a 'smoking gun', piles upon piles upon piles surely has to count for something eh?

I honestly think the pile is growing so deep that even the most doubtful will soon have to admit that things are looking pretty bleak for ole Saddam and the anti Bush crowd.

Declared is the key my friend. Always has been since Saddam agreed to 687.....April 6 1991 IIRC.

[jveritas]

I think most of these documents were in Iraqi intelligence service headquarters or some Iraqi forces major bases as the Al Qadisia Air force base. By the way Al Qadisia air force base has been always one of the most suspected site in Iraq WMD program.

[jveritas]

Exactly right.

[jveritas]

I do not think that Iraq will be allowed a defensive Chemical unit if the international weapons inspection team knew about its existence. The reason is that the US and UN resolutions were very clear that Iraq must absolutely have no relation to anthing related to Chemical weapons defensively or offensively. This Chemical Platoon unit was active without the knowledge of the Weapon inspectors.

[popdonnelly]

These documents really need to be published in book form. Before some leftist idiot gets ahold of them and starts trashing them.

[popdonnelly]

"The US Government has made no determination regarding the authenticity of the documents"

Are you suggesting they're fake?

[popdonnelly]

"Yep, actually militaries all over the world that don't have chemical weapons have "Chemical" units that are decontamination units."

One difference is that every other military in the World doesn't have a record of using chemical weapons, and particularly on their own civilians.

[BlueStateDepression]

This unit is as smoking as a gun can be when the context of 687 is applied.

"Iraq must "unconditionally accept" the destruction, removal or rendering harmless "under international supervision" of all "chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities."

"Iraq must declare fully its weapons of mass destruction programs"

and from resolution 707:

"Iraq must make a full, final and complete disclosure of all aspects of its weapons of mass destruction and missile programs.

"Iraq must allow UN and IAEA inspectors immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access. Iraq must cease attempts to conceal or move weapons of mass destruction, and related materials and facilities.

Me thinks where there is smoke there is fire.....and today, to still claim no smoke would qualify as wishful thinking.

[popdonnelly]

"Slovakia, which is a tiny and not particularly wealthy European country, has such a unit."

Slovakia doesn't have an historical record of using chemical weapons. Saddam used them on the Iranians and the Kurds.

[jveritas]

Thank you for posting this, this further proof that such a Chemical Platoon unit must not exist per the UN resolution and even if some can interpret it as a defensive unit it must not exist, period.

[sgtyork]

True, he had demonstrated offensive chemical capabilities in the Iran-Iraq war. Given chemical's propensity to blow back, a decontamination capability is a data point.

However, I think you also have to recognize that if Iraq adopted the Russian army structure - regiments etc. then a chemical unit is part of the force package.

It is pretty interesting to watch the onion being peeled.

[drhogan]

thanks.
if this document was captured from the Iraqi intelligence HQ, i would conclude it could be very important.

[Lunatic Fringe]

You're doing great work, jveritas.

I think even if Hussein's WMD program may have been in shambles, it's clear that he intended to get weapons as soon as possible.

[drhogan]

what i conclude is not that important. i pretty much assume saddam had wmd, based on his behavior in the past, and based on the events leading up to the invasion. it would be hard for me to be un-convinced of this.
the more crucial issue, in my mind, is having enough evidence to convince the American public, in Nov. 2006 and in Nov. 2008, that he had these weapons.
if this document was captured from Iraqi intelligence, and if it refers to offensive chemical weapons, it could be extremely helpful.

[BlueStateDepression]

I would have to say that the debate over this issue was settled in the 2004 election when W won re-election.

I point to illegal immigration being the forfront issue for '06 and '08.

Basically, I contend that the American left shot the wad with " no WMD" and "Bush lies" trying to oust W in 2004. They missed their target by a mile and they are out of amunition.

I predict that the left will finally 'admit' that opposition without solution has failed them and they will turn to the illegal labor force for votes to take control of anything they can get their hands on in the next two elections. But I also predict they will fail as miserably as they have since 2000.

[drhogan]

"The US Government has made no determination regarding the authenticity of the documents"

Are you suggesting they're fake?

---

that quotation was from the army website where the documents are posted.
i wasn't suggesting anything. i wanted to learn where the document was from; how the army got it. the source of a document is as important as the words in it, when it comes to interpreting its meaning. (i'm sure that people who opposed saddam would be perfectly willing to give a fake document to the army. that's how disinformation is conducted.)
the more i hear from jveritas, the more i am assuming they are not fake. he reports that most of the docs were captured from Iraqi intelligence HQ. if it came from there, i would assume it is real.
(i actually hadn't thought about US army intel posting fake documents, but i wouldn't put it past the CIA to hand some fake documents to army intel so that they could be posted. there have been previous instances of cia-planted disinformation stories--under some previous president--that inadvertently got picked up by american newspapers and published here.)