Posted on 04/19/2007 3:13:26 AM PDT by aculeus
Spectator, 20 April 2007. It’s a fair bet that you have never heard of a guy called Dave Gaubatz. It’s also a fair bet that you think the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has found absolutely nothing, nada, zilch; and that therefore there never were any WMD programmes in Saddam’s Iraq to justify the war ostensibly waged to protect the world from Saddam’s use of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
Dave Gaubatz, however, says you could not be more wrong. Saddam’s WMD did exist. He should know because he found the sites where he is certain they were stored. And the reason you don’t know about this is that the American administration failed to act on his information, ‘lost’ his classified reports and is now doing everything it can to prevent disclosure of the terrible fact that, through its own incompetence, it allowed Saddam’s WMD to end up in the hands of the very terrorist states against whom it is so controversially at war.
You may be tempted to dismiss this as yet another dodgy claim from a warmongering lackey of the world Zionist neocon conspiracy giving credence to yet another crank pushing US propaganda. If so, perhaps you might pause before throwing this article at the cat. Mr Gaubatz is not some marginal figure. He’s pretty well as near to the horse’s mouth as you can get.
Having served for 12 years as an agent in the US Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations Mr Gaubatz, a trained Arabic-speaker, was hand-picked for postings in 2003, first in Saudi Arabia and then in Nasariyah in Iraq. His mission was to locate suspect WMD sites, discover threats against US forces in the area and find Saddam loyalists, and then send such intelligence to the Iraq Survey Group and other agencies.
Between March and July 2003, he says, he was taken to four sites in southern Iraq— two within Nasariyah, one 20 miles south and one near Basra — which, he was told by numerous Iraqi sources, contained biological and chemical weapons, material for a nuclear programme and UN-proscribed missiles. He was, he says, in no doubt whatever that this was true.
This was in the first place because of the massive size of these sites and the extreme lengths to which the Iraqis had gone to conceal them. Three of them were bunkers buried 20-30 feet beneath the Euphrates. They had been constructed through building dams which were removed after the huge subterranean vaults had been excavated so that these were concealed beneath the river bed. The bunker walls were made of reinforced concrete five feet thick.
‘There was no doubt, with so much effort having gone into hiding these constructions, that something very important was buried there’, says Mr Gaubatz. By speaking to a wide range of Iraqis, some of whom risked their lives by talking to him and whose accounts were provided in ignorance of each other, he built up a picture of the nuclear, chemical and biological materials they said were buried underground.
‘They explained in detail why WMDs were in these areas and asked the US to remove them’, says Mr Gaubatz. ‘Much of this material had been buried in the concrete bunkers and in the sewage pipe system. There were also missile imprints in the area and signs of chemical activity —gas masks, decontamination kits, atropine needles. The Iraqis and my team had no doubt at all that WMDs were hidden there’.
There was yet another significant piece of circumstantial corroboration. The medical records of Mr Gaubatz and his team showed that at these sites they had been exposed to high levels of radiation.
Mr Gaubatz verbally told the ISG of his findings, and asked them to come with heavy equipment to breach the concrete of the bunkers and uncover their sealed contents. But to his consternation, the ISG told him they didn’t have the manpower or equipment to do it and that it would be ‘unsafe’ to try.
‘The problem was that the ISG were concentrating their efforts in looking for WMD in northern Iraq and this was in the south’, says Mr Gaubatz. ‘They were just swept up by reports of WMD in so many different locations. But we told them if they didn’t excavate these sites, others would’.
That, he says, is precisely what happened. He subsequently learned from Iraqi, CIA and British intelligence that the WMD buried in the four sites were excavated by Iraqis and Syrians, with help from the Russians, and moved to Syria. The location in Syria of this material, he says, is also known to these intelligence agencies. The worst-case scenario has now come about. Saddam’s nuclear, biological and chemical material is in the hands of a rogue terrorist state — and one with close links to Iran.
When Mr Gaubatz returned to the US, he tried to bring all this to light. Two congressmen, Peter Hoekstra, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and Curt Weldon, were keen to follow up his account. To his horror, however, when they tried to access his classified intelligence reports they were told that all 60 of them —which, in the routine way, he had sent in 2003 to the computer clearing-house at a US air base in Saudi Arabia —had mysteriously gone missing. These written reports had never even been seen by the ISG.
One theory is that they were inadvertently destroyed when the computer’s data base was accidentally erased in the subsequent US evacuation of the air base. Mr Gaubatz, however, suspects dirty work at the crossroads. It is unlikely, he says, that no copies were made of his intelligence. And he says that all attempts by Messrs Hoekstra and Weldon to extract information from the Defence Department and CIA have been relentlessly stonewalled.
In 2005, the CIA held a belated inquiry into the disappearance of this intelligence. Only then did its agents visit the sites — to report that they had indeed been looted.
Mr Gaubatz’s claims remain largely unpublicised. Last year, the New York Times dismissed him as one of a group of WMD diehard obsessives. The New York Sun produced a more balanced report, but after that the coverage died. According to Mr Gaubatz, the reason is a concerted effort by the US intelligence and political world to stifle such an explosive revelation of their own lethal incompetence.
After he and an Iraqi colleague spoke at last month’s Florida meeting of the Intelligence Summit, an annual conference of the intelligence world, they were interviewed for two hours by a US TV show — only for the interview to be junked after the FBI repeatedly rang Mr Gaubatz and his colleague to say they would stop the interview from being broadcast.
The problem the US authorities have is that they can’t dismiss Mr Gaubatz as a rogue agent — because they have repeatedly decorated him for his work in the field. In 2003, he received awards for his ‘courage and resolve in saving lives and being critical for information flow’. In 2001, he was decorated for being the ‘lead agent in a classified investigation, arguably the most sensitive counter-intelligence investigation currently in the entire Department of Defence’ and because his ‘reports were such high quality, many were published in the Air Force’s daily threat product for senior USAF leaders or re-transmitted at the national level to all security agencies in US government’.
The organiser of the Intelligence Summit, John Loftus — himself a formidably well-informed former attorney to the intelligence world —has now sent a memorandum to Congress asking it to investigate Mr Gaubatz’s claims. He has also hit a brick wall. The reason is not hard to grasp.
The Republicans won’t touch this because it would reveal the incompetence of the Bush administration in failing to neutralise the danger of Iraqi WMD . The Democrats won’t touch it because it would show President Bush was right to invade Iraq in the first place. It is an axis of embarrassment.
Mr Loftus goes further. Saddam’s nuclear research, scientists and equipment, he says, have all been relocated to Syria, where US satellite intelligence confirms that uranium centrifuges are now operating — in a country which is not supposed to have any nuclear programme. There is now a nuclear axis, he says, between Iran, Syria and North Korea — with Russia and China helping build an Islamic bomb against the west. And of course, with assistance from American negligence.
‘Apparently Saddam had the last laugh and donated his secret stockpile to benefit Iran’s nuclear weapons programme. With a little technical advice from Beijing, Syria is now enriching the uranium, Iran is making the missiles, North Korea is testing the warheads, and the White House is hiding its head in the sand.’
Of course we don’t know whether any of this is true. But given Dave Gaubatz’s testimony, shouldn’t someone be trying to find out? Or will we still be intoning ’there were no WMD in Iraq’ when the Islamic bomb goes off?
That construction seemed odd to me also........
It was published in The Spectator a venerable British magazine and reposted to her site.
As she notes in her last paragraph "Of course we don’t know whether any of this is true." Neither do I, but I consider it post-worthy.
Not to protect the Russians or anybody else... But here's one idea:
After the fall of Baghdad, we faced the task of searching something like 10,000 ammo depots for chem/bio weapons. If it becomes known then that there ARE chemical shells and agents free for the taking all over the Iraqi landscape, then Al Queda would obviously be looking for them too, and they'd likely find some. This would be bad. The U.S. would be to blame for WMD falling into the hands of terrorists, which was what we rightfully were trying to prevent by taking down Saddam.
No amount of troops could have secured all of the sites quick enough. So... you create a fiction and fall on your sword for them never being there in the first place, while you take the time to search and destroy without competition.
That, and a whole bunch of it went to Syria.
ping
Any anyone who dares to carry the truth of the matter risks condemnation and/or ridicule.
That said, we must all press on with the truth. . .perhaps it will expand to such; that it can no longer be contained . .
I have been debating how to post an experience that happened to me recently, and will I do so now in a deliberately vague way because I do not wish this writing to get back to the source. But it did happen and it troubled me deeply.
I met someone who appears frequently as a security expert on a major cable news channel. This person has a long background as a member of the U.S. military. The conversation drifted to the war in Iraq, and this person launched into a long diatribe against the administration. While I do not believe all members of the armed forces share the same political views, the extent of the rather far left talking points this person espoused was remarkable.
The “lecture” included claims that the intelligence community knew the exact location and amounts of all chemical, and biological agents in Iraq before the war, and that GW cherry picked data to buttress the WMD case, that the war was just to take out Saddam for going after “Bush’s daddy”, and that the administration is guilty of violating the first, second, and third Geneva conventions. A litany of violations of the Constitution were enumerated, and parallels drawn to the fall of the Roman Republic. Furthermore he stated that the generals all hate Bush and if this was any other country there would have been a coup.
I am open to the possibility that Bush did gin up an excuse to invade Iraq, if the reason was a greater strategic end. Such a fact would be troubling to me, perhaps I would even consider it worthy of impeachment despite noble intentions, but it would be something wrong done for the a greater good. However, I do not buy the blood for oil line, and when this person started the old “Cheney and Rove are Bush’s brain” chestnut, sirens immediately began going off in my head.
While I am sure of this person’s general background, I am not so convinced that the claims to inside knowledge and direct interaction with many players in the Iraq war planning are as valid. Lots of folks exaggerate their resumes.
In any event, I was deeply troubled by what I heard. Have those of us who have supported this administration been duped by a corrupt regime? Has this person had some sort of life changing experience that has turned him against his former life in arms? Is he simply saying what the media wants to hear in order to get work?
Whatever the truth is, this individual is helping to shape public attitudes toward the War on Terror, in both news outlets and dramatic shows and movies. If there is anyone who has detailed knowledge of the planning and intelligence prior to the invasion of Iraq, or who may feel they might know who such an individual might be and can provide more background, feel free to send a private message. I would like to get to the bottom of this.
Whoa Hoa! The dots are starting to get connected. The commie peaceniks are going to have lots to answer for.
The liberal establishment (political, academic, media) denies that the Stalin’s USSR was attempting to influence US policy through inflitration of American political, academic, and media institutions.
The KGB files have come out and shown that this was so.
Don’t expect the historical record to clear up after any incriminating evidence comes to life.
There are Holocause deniers who are given credence around this world. There are those who deny that Bush won 2 elections and that in 2002 (between those two elections) Republicans won MORE seats.
We cannot have an honest debate with the other sides because they refuse to concede established details.
BTTT /bookmark for later research.
Every award has a name. I separated out with two ribbons. That may sound important to a civilian but if I say that they were the GCM and the NDSM it’s not impressive at all.
If he retired as a Tech Sergeant, that is less credible than a Lt. Colonel. The standardized periodic report of an NCO would be more easily lost or destroyed than a formal mission report of an officer. I would like to know more before I jump up and down with glee over this story.
Ping for later read.
Assuming that this story is true, it proves that the military and the president are bigger idiots than the liberals ever suspected. It means that the entire reason for going to war was stolen right out from under our noses.
bookmark
Sure, but it's not hidden. It's right out in the open every day.
“Assuming that this story is true, it proves that the military and the president are bigger idiots than the liberals ever suspected.”
I don’t buy that. Out of what were probably thousands of reports of WMD they were supposed to expend resources they didnt have enough of on this one. The WMD probably was in these but was carted out on the trucks that left for Syria shortly before the war.
The Libs just want to paint America as the stupid war mongers. Nothing ever makes them happy except to see a socialist dictator take power. They care nothing for the millions of Iraqi’s that died under Saddam or the millions that would die if we left now.
And worse, if I’m reading the article correctly, the contents of those bunkers were moved to Syria, by Iraqi, Syrian and Russian agents AFTER the invasion. How would we have missed that??
That train has left the station. No one cares, least of all the DBM. Anna Nicole, global warming, the quagmire in Iraq, Gun control, and Corzine's accident are much more important!!
Old news....move on!!
Notice that the guy isn’t sure the WMD’s were still in the buker.
He might have discovered an empty bunker, he never entered it.
The only point here is that he discovered a bunker of WMD’s, because there was radiation and material outside that let think there was.
He might have learnt after that this was moved by Iraqis, Syrians and Russians, and he may think it happened after the invasion.
Probably not true. Happened before.
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