Posted on 03/06/2005 7:55:18 AM PST by alienken
Russia Moved Iraqi WMD Charles R. Smith Thursday, March 3, 2005 Moscow Moved Weapons to Syria and Lebanon According to a former top Bush administration official, Russian special forces teams moved weapons of mass destruction out of Iraq to Syria.
"I am absolutely sure that Russian Spetsnatz units moved WMD out of Iraq before the war," stated John Shaw, the former deputy undersecretary for international technology security.
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According to Shaw, Russian units hid Saddam's arsenal inside Syria and in Lebanon's Bekka valley.
"While in Iraq I uncovered detailed information that Spetsnatz units shredded records and moved all WMD and specified advanced munitions out of Iraq to Syria and Lebanon," stated Shaw during an exclusive interview.
"I received information from several sources naming the exact Russian units, what they took and where they took both WMD materials and conventional explosives. Moscow made a 2001 agreement with Saddam Hussein to clear up all Russian involvement in WMD systems in Iraq," stated Shaw.
Shaw's assertions match the information provided by U.S. military forces that satellite surveillance showed extensive large-vehicle traffic crossing the Syrian border prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Moscow Paranoid About WMD
Shaw's information also backs allegations by a wide variety of sources of Russia's direct involvement in Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. One U.N. bioterrorism expert announced that Russia has been Iraq's "main supplier of the materials and know-how to weaponize anthrax, botulism and smallpox."
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Robert Goldberg cited former U.N. weapons inspector Richard Spertzel, who stated that Moscow supplied Baghdad with fermentation equipment to produce biotoxins.
According to Spertzel, the Russians on the U.N. inspection team in Iraq were "paranoid" about his efforts to uncover smallpox production.
Goldberg noted that no country has "done more to rebuild" Saddam's chemical and biological weapons programs or "been more aggressive in helping hide the truth" than Russia.
It is a fact that Saddam Hussein rose to power backed by Russian weapons and Russian money. Saddam was in debt to Moscow for over $8 billion for the arms he purchased from Russia when he was captured by U.S. forces.
The primary Iraqi chemical weapons were VX nerve gas and mustard gas, a blistering agent, both obtained from Russia.
According to the book "Russian Military Power," published in 1982, "It is known that the Soviets maintain stocks of CW (chemical weapons) agents."
The two primary Russian chemical weapons in the 1982 Soviet inventory were the nerve agent "VX" and "blistering agents - developments of mustard gas used so effectively in World War I."
Russian Chemical Weapons in Iraq
Iraq did most of its WMD killing using Russian-made MiG and Sukhoi aircraft equipped with chemical sprayers. In addition, Saddam used French-made artillery and helicopters to dump gas on Iranian troops and Iraqi Kurds.
Iraq obtained Russian delivery systems and the same inventory of Russian-made chemical weapons at the same time. Iraqi SU-22 Fitter attack jets were armed with Warsaw Pact-designed bombs filled with chemical weapons. Iraq used these Russian jet fighters to drop chemical weapons on Iranian troops during the Iran-Iraq war.
Iraq tried to use these SU-22 jets during the 1991 Gulf War, but they were detected and destroyed on the ground before they could launch a deadly chemical attack.
Other Russian weapons found with chemical weapons include the FROG-7 missile, 122 mm rockets, 152 mm artillery and the M-1937 82 mm mortars. All the Iraqi artillery missiles, rockets, shells and mortar rounds filled with chemical weapons are of Russian design.
Iraqi forces were trained by Russians in the use of chemical weapons and equipped by Russia with anti-chemical suits. The Iraqi armed forces were trained, equipped and supplied with the proper logistics to perform chemical warfare by Russia.
Lebanon and Syria
The arming of Iraq with such weapons has a direct impact on events today in the Middle East. The presence of former Iraqi WMD systems in Lebanon raises serious questions surrounding the Feb. 14 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Many blame Syria for Hariri's murder.
However, the possibility that Hariri discovered the location of the Iraqi WMD systems inside his country lends some credible backing to a Syrian assassination effort to silence him.
In addition, the sudden sale of advanced missile and other weapons to Damascus by Moscow also supports the allegation that Syria is hiding something for Russia.
Russian weapons makers have previously insisted on hard, cold cash payments for their missiles, especially after the fall of Saddam and the collapse of credit deals done with Baghdad. More importantly, the Syrian economy is in bad shape, making it difficult for Damascus to come up with the required money for advanced Russian weapons.
Instead, it now appears that Moscow has extended both very good terms and no down payment required to Syria for an extensive purchase of advanced missiles and weapons. This is in contrast to weapons sales to other "good" Russian customers such as China, which can afford to pay up front for weapon systems.
Ping for later.
I believe Rowan Scarborough of the Washinton Times did a couple stories about this around the time of the al Qaaqa hoax. As usual, the rest of the media yawned.
Plausible.... but vague...
Well, it comes from Newsmax, for one thing. And while I don't doubt the existance of WMD in Iraq prior to the war, it's a tough sell for the administration to keep insistnig "the WMDs were there but the [insert favorite rogue state] moved em because [insert favorite theory]" .
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1355129/posts
Gertz wrote about this in the Wash Times back in October I believe
The administration is not pushing any such line, I don't think. Those that do push it somewhat, like Newsmax and the World Tribune, are pretty consistent with implying Russia and Syria are the conspirators who moved the stuff into the Bekaa Valley. The only fill-in-the-blank favorite theory option is why they moved them.
I like this:
The arming of Iraq with such weapons has a direct impact on events today in the Middle East. The presence of former Iraqi WMD systems in Lebanon raises serious questions surrounding the Feb. 14 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Many blame Syria for Hariri's murder.
However, the possibility that Hariri discovered the location of the Iraqi WMD systems inside his country lends some credible backing to a Syrian assassination effort to silence him.
In addition, the sudden sale of advanced missile and other weapons to Damascus by Moscow also supports the allegation that Syria is hiding something for Russia.
The link you provided only takes me to the main page. Could you hunt up the link to the actual article, and post it here? Thanks!
First I've heard about Russians being on Hans Blix's UN weapons inspection team.
Doesn't surprise me, though, seeing how that operation was a slapstick comedy.
Ping!!!
Ah, thank you for the link to the other thread. That explains it all.
I'd take anything this guy says with a grain of salt. Interesting link here about Shaw's being fired.
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001480.html
If the story is true watch how Syria deals with the Bekka Valley. If Syria is forced out of there quickly, then evidence of this story could be found. I think that the Lebanese would like to cooperate with us in that case. The demonstrators look pro-western.
If Syria is tenacious about holding the vally, then they may be engaged in a delaying action to cover-up or remove the evidence.
In any case, I believe that the MSM, the Russians and the UN would not like revealing the President Bush was right and will do everything to prevent this type of discovery.
I didn't mean to imply that I thought they were pushing it, I was saying one of the reasons you're not hearing more speculation from the administration is because it doesn't play well with people when you have a new explanation of what may have happened to the WMD every other week.
This is redux of stories that have been around since the earliest days of the war. There is a lot of ancillary evidence that the Russians were up to something. There were Russian military advisors in Iraq prior to the war. They were detained by coalition troops while trying to get out of Iraq with lots of papers which detailed sales Russia made to Iraq of banned military related items.
The story that WMD were moved to the Bekaa Valley before the war has been widely circulated, but never officially and publicly confirmed, tot he best of my knowledge.
We do know that SH had WMD which he never proved he had destroyed. That was the focus of the 17 UN Resolutions and the reason we went to war in the first place.
If SH had destroyed all those WMD, why didn't he prove it and thus avoid the war? If he didn't destroy them, where are they? Those are questions I've never heard answered.
Thanks. That's the problem with narrative exposition. The reader reads the tone he thinks he's hearing, and that is not necessarily what the writer intended. I do try to remind myself of that fact . . . often. :-)
Col. Pacepa is a defector formerly with Romanian Intelligence who has described the long-standing policy contingency planning for Soviet/Russian client states to quickly hide, destroy or otherwise cover-up any incriminating weapons or technology should their discovery appear likely.
The Romanian word for this policy was "Sarindar" (quick exit). Of course it can't be "proven", since the very nature of the Sarindar program, if executed successfully, was to remove any necessary evidence to do just that. However, I firmly believe that this is exactly what was done in Iraq, and that the whole purpose of the six-month UN Security Council stall/scam by Russia, France and Germany was to enable this to be accomplished.
Yes, I heard this off and on ever since we have been in Iraq.
Israel has satellite video of the trucks taking the stuff into Syria.
If we can get Syria out of Lebanon - we could have access to the Bekaah Valley and know for sure what is there.
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