Posted on 07/29/2006 5:44:49 AM PDT by shrinkermd
Among the captured documents of the Iraqi Intelligence Services is a memo written in Arabic that describes pre-war intel from an Iraqi source working in Syria. Dated July 13, the memo itself was written after the invasion, but it describes the movement of trucks from Iraq into Syria just before the American invasions. Document ISGQ-2005-00022470 has notations reading "DOD" that indicate the Pentagon has already reviewed the data:
ISGQ-2005-00022470 PAGE (1) MR. HOGGER (KURDISH NAME) REGARDS, KINDLY REVIEW THOSE PAGES AND PLEASE FORWARD THEM TO MRS.MONA FOR FURTHER REVIEW AFTER TRANSLATION THANK YOU SIGNED ABO ABDULLAH JULY 13TH
ESQUIRE, THE DIRECTOR OF COORDINATION AND FOLLOW UP OFFICE
July.13th
Subject: we have information about the location of Mass Destruction Weapons
On Moharram 10th (Arabic calendar), prior to US/allied invasion to Iraq, fifty (50) Iraqi trucks entered Syria as convoys (or groups), I met some the drivers of those trucks, they got no idea about the content of their trucks.
The loads basically came from some where in Baghdad, Iraqi intelligence were escorting the loads. During their tripe, those truck drivers were stopped and asked frequently by the intelligence officers about whether or not they got any idea about the content of their loads, the divers replied “we have no idea”, then the officers would say “thank you”.
Upon their arrival to Deayr Ezoor city/ Syria, the drivers were ordered to get down, elements from Syrian intelligence got into the trucks, they took the trucks to big barracks for downloading.
After that; Iraqi drivers got their trucks back, they got $200 as a reward.
The drivers told me that it was their second time to bring such secret shipment; the first shipment was Moharram 1st.
I have a friend in Syria working in Syrian company, the man has ½ of the company, and the other ½ belongs to a Syrian businessman.
This Iraqi person, a former counselor at Iraqi embassies, has strong connections with Iraqi embassy in Syria, he knows all Iraqi intelligence men there, and he has no idea that I am working with the Iraqi opposition in Syria.
I used to visit him daily during that period to listen to the important news.
When the trucks arrived to Syria, I visited him, told him “Iraqi weapons got inside Syria”, he replied “who told you”, I said “I have my own resources”, he replied “don’t tell any one about that because actually it is inside”.
For those unfamiliar with the Muslim calendar, 10 Mohorram would equate to March 14th for 2003 -- or a little over a week before our invasion of Iraq. The opposition source told the Kurds that the trucks arrived in Dayr az Zawr, a Syrian city on the Euphrates in the expansive eastern section of Syria. A look at a map shows Dayr az Zawr in the middle of nowhere, with plenty of space to hide stockpiles from 50 trucks.
After unloading the trucks -- taking care to separate the Iraqi drivers from their vehicles while doing so -- the Syrians returned the trucks to the drivers and paid each of them $200, a rather princely sum for an Iraqi in 2003. And that was the second such convoy that IIS officers conducted into Syria; the first had been on Mohorram 1, or March 5th.
While this is not quite a smoking gun, it provides yet another piece of evidence pointing to a massive operation to hide Iraq's WMDs. Saddam Hussein must have thought that if the Coalition could not find the WMDs, they would have to withdraw and allow him to assume power once more. It would explain why he allowed so much of his army to disappear rather than fight; he expected to command them again within a few weeks. In fact, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri told Time Magazine that Saddam had made a mistake allowing the army to fight at all:
Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, Saddam's top lieutenant with a $10 million bounty on his head, struck a defiant tone in an intervew appearing on Time magazine's Web site in which he wrote out answers to questions sent in May through intermediaries. Time said it wasn't clear when his answers were written.
Al-Douri, the highest-ranking figure from Saddam's regime still at large and the "king of clubs" on the most wanted list, said Saddam blundered by having his army confront the U.S.-led invasion force instead of holding it in reserve to fight a guerrilla war, but he said the old army has bounced back.
This movement of the weapons also appeased Russia, which helped Saddam build them. The Russians did not want the US to discover the weapons stores and pressed Saddam to get them somewhere else, and fast. American intel has long claimed to have seen these convoys streaming across western Iraq into Syria, and this provides a more complete picture as to what they did when they arrived.
Posted by Captain Ed at 01:59 PM | Comments (25) | TrackBa
Possibly, but Syria will deny it, and short of invasion we can't prove it. We know Syria had WMDs of their own and we did nothing about it.
This reads like the Dan Rather memo.
Ping!
So, you're saying the documents jveritas translated are not valid? Or are you saying jveritas is mistaken? He translanted this very same document some time ago--now other bloggers are picking up on it. I trust jveritas' translations because in the past, others have examined his work and found it to be accurate.
Meant to ping you with the others!
"Mmmm...tripe."
That does it! You're makin' me HUNGRY! I'm headin' for Chinatown for Dim Sum. Best tripe in Cleveland!
Ah gee, and I bet that "oops" attack on the Russian diplomatic convoy leaving Baghad for Syria, had NOTHING to do with this intelligence..
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/convoy.html
You're right, and short of some special forces operation to deal with it, which doesn't seem very feasible, the only thing I can think of is a direct warning to Syria of a massive response if Hezbollah suddenly has WMD capability.
Something is stopping Syria from helping Hezbollah during this conflict to any significant extent.
"The MSM in their support of Democrats have to some degree actually become anti-American."
They have a ways to go to catch up with the New York Times .
Ping!
Only a group like Al Quaeda would be likely to use this.
Here's another thought. Perhaps we've already recovered those WMDs, but with an agreement with the Russians not to disclose that fact. In exchange for not publicly revealing the extent of their cooperation with Iraq in producing and hiding them, we got the WMDs but promised to keep the whole thing secret.
That might explain why the administration is being so quiet about the discovery of the 500+ chemical weapons found in Iraq. They're deliberately downplaying the entire issue instead of using that as vindication of the Iraq war policy.
Far-fetched perhaps, but I'm still looking for a reason why Syria is remaining docile in the current conflict if it's sitting on a cache of WMD.
Way back when.... many FReepers thought Syria was the destination of choice for Saddam's WMD. From time to time the release of this type evidence brings more credence to our early contentions.
Neither. I am saying the memo provides "zero" information to corroborate. (That by the way was the first reason the Rather memo was questioned).
If you were documenting something, wouldn't you add some names, sources etc? Who are the drivers in "I met some the drivers of those trucks". If he met them what did they say about being hired and told about their delivery? Why no names? For example when the Gospel writers gave events they gave names of people who could be contacted. It details 50 trucks. How did he know it was 50 and not 49? Who counted? Were they all the same or different?
The memo says: The loads basically came from some where in Baghdad, Iraqi intelligence were escorting the loads.
How does he know this?
Then we have the next sentence
The loads basically came from some where in Baghdad, Iraqi intelligence were escorting the loads.
The prior sentence says the Iraq intelligence were escorting the load. In the next sentence it says Iraq intelligence stopped the drivers. Are these the same officers? If so why not simply tell them they will be killed rather than play verbal peek-a-boo. If not, then why are other Iraq intelligence guys stopping an escorted convoy?
Then there is this
"I have a friend in Syria working in Syrian company, the man has ½ of the company, and the other ½ belongs to a Syrian businessman."
I have a friend ? Give me a break.
The events may be true and for the record I believe the most likely explanation is that weapons were transported to many countries including Syria. However, this memo conveniently provides the story line without providing any way to corroborate.
Consider this. It is possible those who are making the story about transport to Syria have done so as a red herring to cover the real story. Maybe they are still in Iraq, maybe they are in hands of Hezbolla, or Iran.
They are acting as someone who has a plan and the timing is not right.
WMD ping
Some of us,including, yours truly, feel the biggest story about the WMDS is not where they are and how did they get out of Iraq.
The biggest story is how did the left wing MSM, left wing politicians and other pro Islamofascists in America and the rest of the world, know that most if not all of the WMDS were no longer in Iraq when we invaded Iraq.
The answer is simple. They were told by friends of Saddam that the WMDS were out Iraq. So they knew before any of us knew.
The world knew that Iraq had these WMDs before our invasion, and even the Clintoon thugs told us for years about them.
GW and Putin probably worked out a deal, where Russia got those WMDs out of Iraq with financial help from France and the PRC and maybe Germany. The last thing those 4 countries wanted was publicity about the massive amounts of WMDs and WMD tech know how, Iraq bought from those 4 countries.
A$$ad has been quiet since then, and as others have noted, reasonably quiet about the current shootouts between Israel and Iran's and Syria's proxies in Lebanon.
Krazi Khadafi has apparently come over from the dark side. Don't be surprised if A$$ad has or is in the process.
I have been posting this question for close to 3 years, about how did the MSM and Rats on the left know so fast there were no major WMDS left in Iraq?
In a decade, we will probably find out that there was a combined effort to get those WMDs out of Iraq before we invaded Iraq. That did two things:
#1. The countries, who had sold the WMDS and Tech know how to their buddy $addam were protected.
#2. What everyone is losing sight of, is the most important, the WMDs were not used on our warriors and allies during the Iraqi war.
GW probably used #1 as a motivator to get the WMDS out of Iraq to protect #2 Our warriors who invaded Iraq and our immediate allies in the Middle East. This is typical stealth diplomacy which GW's administration has used for years to silently win in big issues.
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