Iraq: the lies go on [Media's WMD Denials]

Melbourne Herald Sun ^ | 10/9/03 | Andrew Bolt

[TastyManatees]

Iraq: the lies go on

09oct03

I ALREADY knew our media had trouble telling the truth about Iraq.

After last week's shameful headlines, David Kay now sadly agrees. Kay leads the 1200 American, Australian and British experts searching for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and last week gave an interim report on what they'd found.

Here's how it was sold to us. "Weapon hunt fizzles," declared the Hobart Mercury. "No weapons, no approval for Bush in poll," gloated the Sydney Morning Herald. "Iraq search finds no WMD stockpile," said the Age. "US weapons hunt turns up nothing," added the Northern Territory News.

ABC's PM program was even surer of another US "setback": "No evidence of weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq," it trumpeted.

David Kay saw the same kind of headlines in the United States, and says he's "amazed" the media thinks his search has failed.

Did journalists actually read his report, which lists startling new evidence of Saddam's weapons?

Says Kay: "This is information (that), if it had been available last year, would have been headline news." He's now certain "we're going to find remarkable things" in the future, too.

So let me go through his report, which you can read in full on the www.cia.gov website.

Right off, Kay kills the myth that Iraq never had many WMD.

The proof is in: "Iraq's WMD programs spanned more than two decades, involved thousands of people, billions of dollars, and were elaborately shielded by security and deception operations that continued even beyond the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom." (the recent war)

THAT cover-up continues. As recently as July, inspectors searching an Iraqi jail found the still-warm ashes of documents burned in what seems to have been part of an organised effort to destroy evidence of WMD.

Four of Kay's team were also hurt in a bombing, and an Iraqi witness assassinated. Other witnesses have been threatened.

True, no actual WMD have yet been found, but Kay argues they may have been smuggled across the borders, stolen or hidden.

And there's still so much to check. Kay's ISG has searched just 10 of Saddam's 130 weapons dumps, many of which are more than 130 sq km and help store an "almost unbelievable" arsenal of conventional weapons.

What's more, "it is important to keep in mind that even the bulkiest materials we are searching for, in the quantities we would expect to find, can be concealed in spaces not much larger than a two-car garage."

THEY'RE the excuses, but what did the ISG actually find?

Answer: Plenty, including "significant information" that the Iraqi Intelligence Service after 1996 worked on biological and chemical weapons, and set up "a clandestine network of laboratories and facilities within the security service apparatus". These could be "activated quickly to surge the production of BW (biological weapons) agents".

Says Kay: "This network was never declared to the (United Nations) and was previously unknown." His report even shows a picture of lab equipment found hidden in a mosque.

Iraqi scientists also told Kay's team they'd worked on non-lethal organisms to find better ways to make weapons using anthrax and other lethal agents.

Kay reveals for the first time that Iraq was also doing "new research on BW-applicable agents, brucella and Congo Crimean haemorrhagic fever", and "continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin". Iraq declared none of this to the UN. Instead, it told scientists to hide toxic agents in their fridges at home, says Kay.

"One noteworthy example is a collection of reference strains that ought to have been declared to the UN. Among them was a vial of live C. botulinum Okra B. from which a biological agent can be produced."

It alarms Kay that the scientist who'd hidden this deadly toxin from UN weapons inspectors had also been asked to hide a "large cache" of other agents, including anthrax, and refused only because of the risk to his own children.

"ISG is actively searching for this second cache," Kay says grimly. Wish it luck.

More horrifying is the discovery by Kay's team of a "prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN".

Kay adds: "Additional information is beginning to corroborate reporting since 1996 about human testing activities using chemical and biological substances, but progress in this area is slow given the concern of knowledgeable Iraqi personnel about their being prosecuted for crimes against humanity."

IRAQI witnesses agreed Saddam had wanted to make many more biological, chemical and even nuclear weapons the second the UN took its eye off him.

"When Saddam had asked a senior military official in either 2001 or 2002 how long it would take to produce new chemical agent and weapons . . . he responded it would take six months for mustard," Kay says.

"Iraqi scientists and senior government officials (also said) Saddam Hussein remained firmly committed to acquiring nuclear weapons . . . Some indicated a resumption after Iraq was free of sanctions." And a tip for Labor: an African country did offer Saddam uranium.

Saddam was just as keen to get rockets secretly that flew further than the 150km limit demanded by the UN.

"Detainees and co-operative sources indicate that beginning in 2000 Saddam ordered the development of ballistic missiles with ranges of at least 400km and up to 1000km," Kay says.

"Documents found by ISG describe a high-level dialogue between Iraq and North Korea that began in December 1999 and . . . indicate Iraqi interest in the transfer of technology for surface-to-surface missiles with a range of 1300km."

THE pattern of Saddam's deception and evil intent is absolutely clear.

But UN inspectors, Kay suggests, would have battled to find anything in Iraq, and once they'd given up, Saddam was free to spread a new technology of death beyond his borders.

"We have found people, technical information and illicit procurement networks that if allowed to flow to other countries and regions could accelerate global proliferation."

Which is precisely the reason the Coalition leaders gave for going to war.

Read the full report, and you'll see why the headlines last week should have read "Iraq war justified". So why were you told the opposite?

[TastyManatees]

Here is an interesting opinion piece on how brazenly the media has purposefully misreported the contents of Dr. David Kay's report on the WMD programs his team of experts has found in Iraq after three months. A summary of Dr. Kay's report can be found here, and I heartily recommend taking five minutes to at least read the list of nasty stuff they found so far. I generally hesitate to call anyone a "liar", because that assumes they know what they are saying is false, but given the contents of Dr. Kay's statement, bold headlines from the New York Times and others claiming "No WMDs found in Iraq" venture into the territory of bald faced lies.

Tasty Manatees

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[TastyManatees]

Bump.

[yoe]

The only way to combat the bias is for our men and women in Iraq to embed themselves in letters to home that you Freepers will publish, they know the successes and they support their Commander in Chief.

http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=IA15003

Iraq: Moving Forward Despite Violence
By: Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli*

Violence and terrorism in post-war Iraq, while a legitimate subject for the press, often overshadows the progress made in the region. Statements by Iraqi officials as well as a number of editorials published in Iraqi and Arab newspapers would indicate that the situation in Iraq, particularly in Baghdad, has been steadily improving. Last week's decision by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to reduce the number of night time curfew hours to four is an indication of growing confidence in Iraq's security. Certainly there is a sense of optimism about the future, confirmed by a number of polls taken in Iraq in recent months.

Polls in Iraq A number of public opinion polls have been taken in Iraq since the fall of the Saddam regime to measure the primary concerns of Iraqis as well as their level of optimism. While the validity of the results in a country whose people are unfamiliar with freedom of speech may be questionable, the polls reflect a sense of optimism about the future.

In one poll, the Saudi daily Okaz asked people if they agreed or disagreed with the following statement: "Iraq, and the people of Iraq, are today better off than they were in the past." 66 percent of the respondents "strongly agreed" and another 17 percent "agreed." Only 17 percent disagreed. One hundred percent of respondents disagreed with the statement: "It is possible that Saddam Hussein will return to govern Iraq because he is preferable to the Western coalition." In analyzing the results of the poll, the paper concluded that a majority of Iraqis are pessimistic about the conditions in the short term, but optimistic about the long-term situation. [1]

In another poll - this one taken for the American Enterprise Institute by Zogby International - two findings are particularly significant:

Iraqis are optimistic. Seven out of 10 say they expect their country and their personal lives will be better five years from now.
While they may not like being under occupation, 59 percent of respondents would give the occupation forces and, by extension, the CPA, the additional time of one to two years to initiate political and economic reforms. Another interesting finding is that an overwhelming majority of respondents oppose an Iraqi government patterned after the Islamic Republic of Iran. [2]

Pride in History..................this is worth reading........

[RusIvan]

I think no one object the fact that WMD program was there.
But this program wasn't successfull. At least in nuclier part. Other parts like biological and chemical seems they destroyed themselves.
No doubt that they can reestablish all that if UN lifted sanctions. And provide terrorist with them.
Those points none objects. So that anti-Saddam operation was baseful but only as prevention.

But it was mistake of president advisers to press on reality of WMD. President Bush and Tony Blaier both said that Saddam has WMD with 45 minute readiness. It wasn't true.
IMHO to recouperate the damage pres Bush has to admit he wasn't right on that point. I think it is refusal which put oil to fire now and feed the press.

[Texas2step]

And, it seems that you've drunk the kool-aid that the press has been giving out. If you really believe what you wrote, you have been seriously misled.

T2s

[thoughtomator]

The press isn't interested in the truth, just witness the "16 words" fiasco over uranium from Niger, they still don't admit they got that wrong. The press simply wants to attack this President, and any excuse will do.

WMD are at the core of why we took out Saddam. Post 9/11, it simply is not conducive to survival to do nothing when the ability to create and deliver WMD is combined with the desire to use them against us. Equally unacceptable would be for a nation to provide safe haven to enable others to do so. For our own survival, we could no longer take the risks inherent with waiting for Saddam to die (just to get one of his insane sons as a replacement) or be overthrown (extremely unlikely given the regime and history of failed revolt there).

[RusIvan]

I understand that and I agree. I just said that press love to catch someone mistake and speculate on it. If pres Bush agrees that it was mistake then press will not have nothing to speculate anymore and whole ordeal will die itself.
Pres Bush will prove that he is a man since he may admit his mistake.
He did it partially admiiting that there no WMD in Iraq and there no connection with Al Kaeda.

[thoughtomator]

First, there were WMD and we did find it - read Dr. Kay's report. And this is only a few months into the search and there's a lot more to inspect. Whether the NY Times or Ted Kennedy wants to admit it or not, we found WMD in Iraq. So 'admitting' that there was no WMD in Iraq would in fact be more of a lie than anything we have heard to date on the subject from the administration.

But all this is tangential to the point, since the actual presence of ready-to-fire WMD was not the stated reason why we went to war. It was the potential and appetite for destruction combined with the known intentions of the Hussein regime and the absence of any other way to remove it. It was no small detail either that there already existed a state of war between the two countries, given that no post 1991 peace treaty had been made, and the terms of the ceasefire violated hundreds of times by the enemy regime.

Regardless of speculation on WMD and Al Qaida,

[thoughtomator]

oops truncated comment

Regardless of speculation on WMD and Al Qaida, the case for the war was contingent on proof positive of neither.

[RusIvan]

First, there were WMD and we did find it - read Dr. Kay's report. ===

No no no sir. They didn't find real WMD. They found just WMD PROGRAM!! SO it is the papers they found.
But no one never deny the existance of WMD program in Iraq.

The real WMD is different story. Pres Bush told in his speech that Iraq has real WMD in 45 minute readiness. That was mistake.

[thoughtomator]

I don't recall Bush ever saying that. Which speech did he say that in, and when? As far as I am aware, the only source of the 45-minute claim is UK intelligence.

[RusIvan]

I don't argue with casue of war. The prevention.

I say that president Bush and his advisers made big mistake when they pressed on REALITY of WMD in Iraq to public.
They didn't have no proves and they blander. Now press chews them for that.

[RusIvan]

I saw the film of PBS just yestoday. They showed pres Bush speech when he told by his own words about 45-minute readiness of Iraqi WMD.
I heard it again by my own ears. I swear. And I'm sure PBS will repeat that film many times you may catch it too.