The truth, at last. An Iraqi Colonel: "The West Should Thank God Iraq decided NOT to fight."

Telegraph ^

[Happy2BMe]

The truth, at last
(Filed: 07/12/2003)

"The West should thank God that the Iraqi army decided not to fight," Lt Col Dabbagh tells the Telegraph's intrepid Con Coughlin in today's newspaper. "If the army had used these weapons there would have been terrible consequences." The weapons Col Dabbagh was referring to are Saddam Hussein's stocks of chemical and biological warheads. A senior officer at the heart of Saddam's armed forces, the colonel was the conduit of the now-infamous claim in the intelligence dossier which Tony Blair presented to Parliament and to the country: the claim that Saddam had the capacity to unleash weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological weapons, within 45 minutes of ordering their use.

Col Dabbagh told Mr Coughlin that the 45-minute claim was "100 per cent correct". He added that Saddam had hidden huge stocks of arms, including his chemical and biological munitions, at secret sites across Iraq. The colonel's claims must be taken very seriously. He has no reason at all to make them up, or to lie to Mr Coughlin, by whom he was reluctant to be interviewed. Yet it is important to be clear about what Col Dabbagh's testimony does - and what it does not - establish. There can now be little doubt that Saddam possessed chemical and biological weapons. Col Dabbagh saw those weapons for himself when they were delivered to his unit, and indeed received instructions on how they were to be used.

The means of delivery for those weapons were, however, extremely primitive: they could only be used on the battlefield, where range was very restricted and their accuracy minimal. That seems to have been one reason why they were not used during the war. The American advance was so rapid that the Iraqis could only deploy chemical weapons around Baghdad: that would have killed the Iraqi civilian population - who did not have masks - but not the US soldiers, who did. Even Iraqi officers loyal to Saddam Hussein balked at that.

It is clear that Saddam Hussein did not have the ability to launch missiles which could carry chemical or biological weapons reliably to most sites in Iraq - never mind to places as far away as Cyprus or London. Yet when the Prime Minister presented the intelligence dossier setting out the case for war to Parliament, he described the threat to Britain from Saddam as "current and serious". He allowed the impression to be given that Saddam's ability to launch chemical and biological weapons "which could be activated in 45 minutes" meant that British troops in Cyprus, or even civilians in Britain itself, could be targeted. This was not true, and many of those in the intelligence services knew it was not true. When, however, the newspapers published stories wrongly claiming that British bases in Cyprus were at risk from Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, no one in the Government did anything whatever to correct them.

Mr Blair's determination to confront Saddam Hussein was admirable and right, but New Labour's addiction to spin, and an inability to tell the truth without embellishing it, meant that, in making the case for war, he misrepresented to the public the intelligence that he had been given. Dr David Kelly conveyed, albeit in a somewhat mangled and self-serving form, the concern of some members of the intelligence world about that misrepresentation to the BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan. The Prime Minister then insisted to Parliament that the BBC had been completely wrong to suggest that there was any unhappiness within the intelligence community about the Government's interpretation of the information given to them about Iraq's WMD capability: but as was revealed during the Hutton Inquiry, there was in fact considerable unhappiness on precisely that point.

Mr Blair's exaggerations and misrepresentations were unnecessary, because there is no doubt that, in the context of the global war on terror, and of al-Qaeda's determination to obtain weapons of mass destruction with which to terrorise the West, Saddam posed a clear threat. Contrary to the claims of those who said it was "inconceivable" that religious fanatics from al-Qaeda could ever make common cause with Saddam and his supporters, precisely that has happened since the Americans liberated Iraq from his grip. There were good reasons for going to war with Iraq. But protecting British bases or cities from missiles launched by Saddam Hussein was not one of them.

"For the preparation of the dossier we had a real concern not to exaggerate the intelligence that we had received," the Prime Minister told Parliament on September 24. Yet he did exaggerate that intelligence. If Lord Hutton cuts to the heart of the matter, Mr Blair will pay a heavy political price for it.

[U S Army EOD]

There are tons of mustard gas on the bottoms of lakes in France around places like Verdun right now still from WWI. The stuff just goes to the bottom and stays there. It would not be picked up trying to test the water near the surface. This is especially true if the mustard gas in Iraq is still in some type of container.

I have a small scar on my arm that is almost 40 years old from mustard gas. They used to put a 10% strength the size of a pinhead on us during training to show us what it would do. We also got to decontaminate some of it, they put it in three different places and we used procedures on two of them. One we left alone. The blister came up and it took about two months for the sore to heal over. After they found out the stuff stays in your system, they changed the lesson plan.

[Zeroisanumber]

What we need is a shell, or a missle, or just a single cask of goop to point to and say, "There". We have hearsay, and some semi-reliable testimony, but nothing concrete enough to bandy around in front of the world stage.

[Happy2BMe]

"They have apparently found "Silkworm" missiles capable of flying 1000 km (600 miles), that could be tipped with sarin."

Silkworm = CHINA

Exocet = FRANCE

Wonder how many exocets have been found?

[Kozak]

The major problem then would not have been trying to find WMD, it would have been trying to find Iraq.

Oh what was left of it would have been under that giant sheet of glass.....

[TexKat]

Thanks MnM for the ping. U S Army EOD do you remember where the red circle was in Iraq during the middle of Iraqi Freedom? I remember a cable news journalist reporting that they (the Iraqis) was spotted moving some containers that was suspected of containing chemical and/or biological weapons.

[rdb3]

It would be, if the good Colonel would be so kind as to show us where the giant stockpiles of WMD are.

Who said anything about there being "giant stockpiles of WMD?"

[U S Army EOD]

I remember that report also.

[U S Army EOD]

We have the shells or carriers, I've seen current pictures of them.

[auzerais]

What I don't understand is if the AP and NBC saw fit to air and print this blockbuster of a story, how come even Drudge and FoxNews have so far ignored it?

Ok I can kinda understand that FoxNews is simply too busy right now force-feeding us the lastest crap about Michael Jackson being a perv to give a damn about supporting Pres Bush's claims about Iraqi WMDs, but Drudge headlining his page with a story about women lopping off their toes is simply too much!!!

What the heck is going on?!?!

[Happy2BMe]

"David Kay said that the methods of weaponizing dried anthrax were superior to those of the US and the former Soviet Union."

Wasn't the US Postal Service having some problems with "sophisticated" anthrax handling a while back?

Nah - too coincidental.

[LoudRepublicangirl]

I agree. I want to believe this guy but have to wonder what his motives are-not that I don't believe that there are WMD. It's just that my experience with Arabs is that their perception of the truth is somewhat altered.

[LoudRepublicangirl]

Thank you, I am getting a little annoyed with FOX lately. It has become the home of tabloid journalism. I am sick to death of Michael Jackson, Laci Peterson, etc. It seems they give more importance to that trash than real issues anymore.

[U S Army EOD]

My personal OPINION is they had a few but not many. We got most of them during the first war, that is the ones they didn't use on Iran or their own people. All of their chemical ordnance was supplied to them by the Russians and that supply dried up. I had some friends on operation Nimbus Moon when we went in and helped the Egyptains clear the Suez cannal. They told me they saw huge stockpiles of chemical munitions in the Egyptain inventories. To my knowledge, the Egyptains have long since destroyed what they had. However this stuff is all over the Middle East in other countries.

However, I sincerely believe the Iraqis were gearing up to start mass producing many, many more on their own plus developing a program to export them. We keep forgetting that they tried to assasinate Bush on his trip to Kuwait. They were and are willing to do anything to get back at us.

[spookycc]

BTW, Ollie North's new book ("War Stories: Operation Iraqi Freedom") rox. I can hardly bring myself to put it down.

[U S Army EOD]

Guess I will have to get that one.

[John Beresford Tipton]

Who said anything about there being "giant stockpiles of WMD?"


Er,.....names like Powell, Bush ring any bells?

[rdb3]

Er,.....names like Powell, Bush ring any bells?

Of course </rolling eyes>

Notice that I quoted the words "giant stockpiles of WMD." Does that tell you anything?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Zeroisanumber]

We have the shells or carriers, I've seen current pictures of them.

Yeah, but we need the goop. Old (even new) shells aren't going to convince anyone who isn't already convinced.

[Klein-Bottle]

There are 150,000 Iranians and Kurds who were murdered by Iraq’s WMD. Nobody disagrees with the dead. Nobody is claiming, not even Ted Kennedy, that these people just decided to have heart attacks at the same time.

Saddam had them ten years ago, and there is no evidence of their destruction. Iraq is a large country and 5,000 gallons of liquid can fit in a two-car garage. The question is not if they exist, but where are they and who has access to them.

One of my liberal friends claimed that we have control of Iraq for two-thirds of a year and since no WMD were found, they must not exist. I would like to remind people that we have in this country a bio-weapons lab that made highly refined anthrax two years ago, and the FBI still has no idea where it is either. Just because its location is unknown does not mean it doesn’t exist.