| Just like impeaching Clinton for sex crimes, isn't it?
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Posted on 01/16/2003 3:27:52 PM PST by blam
Inspectors discover Iraqi warheads. Will this be the trigger for war?
By David Usborne in New York and Andrew grice
17 January 2003
The prospects of war with Iraq appeared to increase suddenly last night after United Nations weapons inspectors revealed they had discovered a number of empty chemical warheads stashed in a complex of newly built bunkers in the country.
Officials and diplomats said they could not yet reach any definitive conclusions on the warheads but their discovery threatens to alter the mood severely as the United States continues to press the case against Iraq.
Hiro Ueki, a UN spokesman in Baghdad, said: "During the course of their inspection, the team discovered 11 empty 122 mm chemical warheads and one warhead that requires further evaluation." Mr Ueki said the warheads were, "in excellent condition".
The warheads might provide the first clear evidence of Iraq's alleged programme to develop banned weapons since the UN resumed its inspections inside Iraq eight weeks ago. But the UN office in Baghdad said it did not consider the find to be a "smoking gun".
A US official in Washington said the site was not among those pointed out by American intelligence to the UN inspectors. "A smoking gun would be if you found a big stockpile with chemicals," he said. "This raises lots of questions."
Iraq dismissed the discovery as "a storm in a teacup" saying the empty warheads were old artillery rockets mentioned in Iraq's December declaration to the UN. The chief Iraqi liaison officer to the UN teams, General Hussam Mohammad Amin, said: "There are no chemical or biological agents or weapons of mass destruction or linked to weapons of mass destruction. These rockets are expired ... they were in closed wooden boxes ... that we had forgotten about."
The UN insisted the warheads had not been previously disclosed by Iraq.
Tony Blair reacted cautiously, to avoid accusations of "bouncing" the inspectors. He may receive more information from Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, when they meet at Chequers today.
Downing Street said: "We note what the spokesman for the UN weapons inspectors has said about their find. We await more information."
Mike O'Brien, a Foreign Office minister, said it was too early to judge the significance of the inspectors' discovery. But he added: "We've always said that Saddam has been concealing things.
"We'll have to see whether this falls into that particular category, but it's time for Saddam to stop concealing, and start complying with [UN] resolution 1441."
Hours before the discovery UN arms inspectors had confronted Iraqi scientists at their homes in residential districts of Baghdad for the first time. The new, more aggressive stance on the ground was thought to be on the basis of fresh intelligence. News of the discovery reached New York just as the UN Security Council was in a meeting, during which America tried to head off a UN report seen as an obstacle to an early decision on war.
Earlier President George Bush said his patience with Saddam Hussein was running out. "It's his choice to make. It's up to Saddam Hussein to do what the entire world has asked him to do. And time is running out. At some point in time the United States' patience will run out."
Yesterday's unprecedented foray by the UN inspectors to the homes of Iraqi scientists took place in the Ghazaliyeh district of Baghdad. Witnesses said Faleh Hassan, a physicist, left his home with the inspectors and accompanied them to a field outside Baghdad where together they inspected what appeared to be a man-made mound in the earth.
In recent days, the inspectors have stepped up their work in Iraq. Their new initiatives, which included visiting the principal palace of President Saddam in central Baghdad, are likely to have been spurred by new intelligence provided by Washington and London.
Bernard Jenkin, the shadow Defence Secretary, said: "If these reports are true, this find justifies the weapons inspections.
"These warheads, which are in good condition, were not in Saddam's declaration. This constitutes the first part of a material breach of paragraph 4 of UNSCR 1441."
The group-think about these inspections, vis-a-vis justifying war with Iraq, is all wrong. Here's a guy who has gassed the Iranians, gassed his own people, started war against his neighbors, threw missles into Israel, has violated every provision of the agreements that ended the Gulf War, who shoots at our fighter planes, has continued building up his army (for what?), and on top of it is a thug and the illegitimate ruler of an illegitimate government. The appeasers and the peace-weenies need to justify why we shouldn't go to war with Iraq, regardless of what the weapons inspectors find or don't find.
By Anne Penketh
17 January 2003
Independent (UK)
The big question over yesterday's find of empty chemical warheads at an Iraqi ammunition storage area is whether the warheads contain traces of the nerve agent VX, the deadliest chemical weapon in Iraq's banned arsenal.
If traces of VX – or any other chemical agent, such as mustard gas – were found on any of the warheads, it would be a clear contradiction of Iraq's claim that it no longer holds any weapons of mass destruction.
If the chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, determines that Iraq is in breach of its disarmament obligations, he is duty-bound to go straight to the UN Security Council to report the violation.
The UN spokesman in Baghdad, Hiro Ueki, said that one of the dozen empty 122mm chemical warheads discovered during an inspection of an ammunition storage area required "further evaluation." But he also said that the UN did not consider the find to be a "smoking gun."
As of last night, it was not clear whether the warheads were some that had previously been accounted for by the weapons inspectors. Last month they secured a dozen artillery shells filled with mustard gas, which had been itemised by the former UN weapons regime. But since the weekend, apparently acting on fresh intelligence, the 100 or so weapons inspectors in Iraq have stepped up their work and are acting much more aggressively.
Mr Ueki said the missiles were similar to ones imported by Iraq during the late 1980s. The UN team, which was inspecting bunkers built in the late 1990s at the Ukhaider ammunition storage area, used portable X-ray equipment to conduct a preliminary analysis of one of the warheads, and collected samples for chemical testing.
The inspectors are back in familiar territory: in 1997, they discovered warhead remnants with traces of VX on them. After weeks of wrangling, President Saddam Hussein agreed to tests in the United States, but when the results came out positive, the Iraqi government accused the US of deliberately contaminating the tests.
The inspectors then agreed to send the remnants for further testing in France and Switzerland, but amid high political tensions the matter was not fully resolved before the weapons monitors pulled out of Iraq in December 1998.
The inspectors have complained that the 12,000 pages of Iraq's "full, final and complete" report on its weapons of mass destruction issued on 7 December contained very little new information. Iraq has been warned by the US that its lack of candour constitutes a "material breach" – a code word that can be used to trigger a war.
Until now, the rest of the UN Security Council has not gone along with the US view. Tony Blair suggested on Monday that it might only be a matter of a short time before a "smoking gun" would appear that will convince the other 14 Council members that Iraq is back to its old tricks.
| Just like impeaching Clinton for sex crimes, isn't it?
|
Well, maybe. If she does it's been rendered useless due to gobs of NPR dribble.
(Anyone know how much the gubermint actually funds this outfit for? I'm doing a little research.)
I totally agree with you on CEE CEE though.
Basically, I have no hope for the left. I'm convinced that liberal/leftist thinking causes brain damage, and there is no way to reason with these people. 90% of the American people will be with Bush when the US drops the first bomb on Saddam's head. We don't really need to be concerned about the appeasers and apologists of tryany. I'd just like to see people in the media, or the White House, or Republicans in Congress take these people to task and demand that THEY justify why we shouldn't go to war, if war is necessary to pry this dictator from power.
Hey, what about MY anxiety that if left to do his skullduggery, Saddam's agents will light off an nuke some day upwind from where I live and work. That's the issue here. There is greater danger in doing nothing, than in finishing the job that was begun (and suspended) in 1991.
No, but if handled properly by the Bush team, it will do much to shift back the burden of proof in the intenational media.
My guess is the is "small taters" compared to what is yet to be dug up.
:-)
Good point. Another is that the current debate isn't about whether to start a war with Saddam, but whether to end one. We've been at war with this tinhorn dictator since 1991. It's about time we ended it. He's given enough provocation, and 9/11 shows that we can expect to be hit by lunatics even when we do nothing.
The other thing to note is that all of the peace weenies the media is giving attention to are basically the same people who, after 9/11, asked questions like "Why do they hate us?", and placed blame directly on us for the attack. These people are warped at best, anti-American at worse. We cannot submit the fate of this nation to their way of thinking.
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Yep.