Posted on 08/18/2002 1:17:45 AM PDT by efnwriter
War on Iraq
Saddam and Iran Prepare WMD
efreedomnews.com
by Jonathan Rhodes August 15, 2002
Saddam cannot win a war with the US, if the US has the will to win. However, if he attacks first and achieves military control over much of the middle east, he can reach a position of strength to negotiate from and may not only maintain his power but extend it.
First, the disinformation campaign while Saddam Prepares Preemptive Attacks
Iraq invited chief U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix to visit Baghdad for technical talks on Aug. 1. However, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told Iraq, by formal letter, that it must accept the U.N. Security Council's terms for the return of weapons inspectors before such talks take place.
Iraq has not yet replied to Annan's letter.
On August 10, 2002, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan told Abu Dhabi Television that Baghdad was willing to discuss the return of inspectors -as long as there were no conditions to the discussions:
"Iraq is ready to discuss the return of the U.N. weapons inspectors, provided that any dialogue with the United Nations takes place with no preconditions."
On August 12 Baghdad said return of UN weapons inspectors was unnecessary:
"To say, as the United States does, that Iraq possesses prohibited weapons is pure invention. The teams of inspectors finished their work," Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf told a Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite television channel from Baghdad.
"The work of the United Nations according to Chapter C of resolution 687 on the so-called prohibited arms has been accomplished." he said.
The August 10 Ramadan interview was not aired in full until today, August 15, 2002, (although it was widely reported on August 10th). Even the supposedly accurate Associated Press has been confused by this disinformation campaign as they reported Ramadan's August 10 remarks as "...appear(ing) to back down from his strong opposition to the return of inspectors," in an article dated August 15, 2002 titled Iraq Ready for Return of Inspectors .
Are you confused now? Don't be - Saddam is just using disinformation to stall as he prepares to launch an attack into Jordan and Israel on his way to Middle Eastern hegemony.
That story, being virtually ignored by news outlets like the AP, is very clear, and very, very serious.
One article, not picked up by the wire services, was written by Bill Gertz for The Washington Times. - Iraqi Germ Plant Active. Research by efreedomnews has expanded on Mr. Gertz's report.
US and Israeli satellites have picked up large convoys of trucks leaving the Taji Single Cell Protein Plant, 6 miles northwest of Baghdad. The destination: The Zagros Mountains - 12,000 to 15,000 feet high and nearly impassable. The convoys stop at two sites 20 to 30 kilometers inside the Iranian border in Kermanshah Province near the suburbs of Khorram-Abad and the other in the Harour Hills in the Khorram Abad region.
Taji is a main chemical, biological and nuclear weapons manufacturing center.
The plant was converted by the Iraqis into a biological-weapons production facility and subsequently bombed during the 1991 Persian Gulf war. After the war, U.N. weapons inspectors uncovered evidence that Iraq had used the site to fill Scud-missile warheads with deadly VX nerve agent. The Taji plant produced hundreds of gallons of Botulinum toxin during the late 1980s and had a spore drier capable of producing up to a kilogram of weaponized dried spores a day for Botulinum and anthrax.
The Taji plant was the planned location for a centrifuge uranium-enrichment program for nuclear weapons production. The program was believed to have been halted after 1991, but Iraq has since purchased equipment for centrifuge enrichment.
Since 1997 Saddam has fully rebuilt the plant and protected it with Republican Guard tank divisions.
So clearly, convoys of trucks leaving Taji would be transporting WMD weapons or the equipment to make WMD weapons. Saddam would like to keep this state of the art WMD factory intact. The two destination sites in the Zagros are tunnels built in the mid-1970's by the Shah of Iran. After his fall in 1979 when Jimmy Carter abandoned him, a Revolutionary Guard (Pazdaran) force was permanently stationed at the tunnels site. In early 1998 the tunnels were modernized and greatly strengthened against air attacks.
This preservation of WMD capability is so important to Saddam that he has put his son and probable heir Qusay in command of the project. Bagher Zolghadr, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards on the Iran-Iraq border, heads up the Iranian end of the operation.
DEBKAfile reports: Iran’s ulterior motive in providing safekeeping for Saddam’s WMD resources is simple. According to our intelligence sources, Iran commands nothing nearly as advanced as Iraq in the way of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons-making equipment. Helping Saddam will lend Iran’s experts free access to Iraq’s state of the art equipment and a chance to copy and assimilate technology that cost Iraq billions of dollars to develop.
Other reports indicate that Baghdad is developing rail cars that could be used to develop or transport biological weapons agents. "They're buying dual-use capability," SecDef Rumsfeld said during a visit to a military base in Suffolk, Va. "A biological laboratory can be on wheels in a trailer and make a lot of bad stuff, and it's movable, and it looks like most any other trailer."
The most worrisome aspect of safeguarding the WMD manufacturing equipment movement is that Saddam feels comfortable with his current stocks of WMD materials and deployment.
There are unsubstantiated reports that Saddam has up to 20 "dirty bombs" and 6 to 10 active nuclear weapons that can be launched by missile or jet aircraft.
Saddam continues to prepare for immediate preemptive WMD strikes against US troops already in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq, as well as those located at the Jordanian air bases at Ar Ruwayshid in the east, Wadi el-Murbah to the north and al-Mafraq in the west. The Turkish air base at Incirlik is also high on the Iraqi target list.
On August 8, 2002, Saddam gave a speech to the Iraqi people and said:
“The forces of evil [United States] will carry their coffins on their backs, to die in disgraceful failure, taking their schemes back with them, or to dig their own graves after they bring death to themselves on all Arab or Muslim soil against which they perpetrate aggression, including Iraq, the land of Jihad and the banner.”
“Charge on, charge on, charge on…the beloved chant is raised, as though our men are circumambulating the Qa’ba or returning to the place from which the Prophet Mohammed, the Messenger of Allah, ascended to God on that Blessed Night, after they cleanse the land of Palestine of Zionist desecration.” [Israel]
Of course Israel is a prime target for Saddam. Yesterday, civilian residents of Jerusalem were distributed iodine tablets to be taken in the event of a nuclear attack and 100,000 smallpox vaccinations were initiated, given to "first responders" - military, medical and rescue team personnel.
Companion, synchronous massed Palestinian suicide bombings in Israel, coordinated by Yasser Arafat, and WMD attacks on New York and Washington by pre-positioned sleeper terrorist cells are integral to Saddam's plan.
After the initial WMD attacks, Saddam's plan is to launch an all out invasion of Jordan. He has met with Syrian President Assad and attempted to persuade him to join the pan-Arabic war and attack Israel from the Golan Heights.
To elucidate the reality of this Iraqi scenario, 4000 US troops arrived at Jordan’s Aqaba port on the Red Sea Monday, August 12 with loads of Bradley fighting vehicles and helicopters on ships hastily chartered by the US Navy. [DOD Briefing, Straitstimes, Navy Leases Transports]
SecDef Rumsfeld claimed this was for a long scheduled "exercise" with Jordan's armed forces.
Jordan's closure of the local branch of Al-Jazeera television last week will result in minimal Arab news coverage of these troop movements.
Most likely, the real reason for the deployment is to protect Jordan’s main highways between the port of Aqaba, Amman and the northern air bases as well as highways directly into Israel to the west; to protect against the Iraqi invasion of Jordan, and Israel.
This may all be saber rattling by Saddam, but the escalating troop and equipment movement on both sides, the Israeli precautions and the activity around Taji portends Saddam may not be willing to wait for the US to rain bombs on him and systematically take Iraq apart before he responds. His first attack has to be lethal - he knows he will not get a second chance.
It is the single greatest way to defeat terrorism and permanently secure Israel.
Would alot of Americans and Israelis die as a result...yes.
Would America and Israel prevail...yes.
We could crush Arab militancy once and forever. Hisbollah, Islamic Jihad, the wahabbis, all of them erased. New Governments could be installed and oil would flow freely without the threat of embargo or sanction affecting the world market....because it is the World's market and not ours that takes the hit from Middle Eestern embargos...it isnt the 70's anymore.
Palestinians that werent wiped out by the Israelis would be forced to capitulate because they would no longer have support from outside souces....save the whining from Europe.
Unfortunately I dont believe the Arab Nations taken as a whole has the courage to stand up to the US militarily. So it'll probably be a slow drawn out process of removing Hussein and then strong arming the others. I have no problem with twisting any Arab nations wrist because in the end I believe what we want is correct and what they want is not. I'd rather let the eurowimps and Liberals ponder moralistic results. Iraq probably will try to pull something. Anything they could try to do in theatre is a waste of time and can be dealt with. Any missle launch would be defeated by either American Patriot missile systems or by the Israeli Sparrow systems [which are reported to be more effective].
Any Iraqi movement of troops and material is watched at all times and well considered. All Iraq can do practically is lay there and take it.
Are there a million and one scenarios possible....yes.
Do any of them lead to an Iraqi trump card....no.
China doesnt have the capability to intervene on any practical level and though far from certain it is highly unlikely that the Russians would flip given what they stand to lose in squaring up to the US Military.
The only real option for Hussein and the other Arab states is a Chemical/Biological/Nuclear attack on our major cities [New York City, Chicago etc, etc.] and Washington DC.
I would expect them to use diplomats or people with diplomatic immunity to pull it off. An attack with synergy in several different locations [LA, Houston, Miami, Indianapolis, Denver] would be the best option for Arab states. They wont face us Militarily but does anyone have real doubt that they are willing to use terrorists to attack us internally? 9/11 serves as an example and encouragement to embark on this sort of thing.
I do not know how possible this is or isnt as I am not competent to speak on the surveillance/security that surrounds Arab diplomats in this country or how well we monitor diplomatic pouches and shipments to the various embassies and UN.
In the end...anything done in the AO by Iraq is a waste of our time...and just drags things out. His defeat will be secured the moment George W. Bush makes the call.
Iran may play cute little games with Iraq and anyone else but reality is that right now their greatest threat is internal. They've imported Saudi and Iraqi brute squads to come in and crush interal revolt because regular Persian soldiers arent doing so with any zeal. The slightest hint of a serious American military intervention...for any reason...would bring about their fall quickly...they cannot be trusted as they are devout Muslims but they will try to walk upright in light of American presence in the Gulf region.
This is an instance where might actually does make right.
All of this is pure specualtion and opinion but it is more based on reality and practical ability then the original article written by efnwriter.
I hate to come off like the Pollyanna but you have to have basic ground rules to discussing what Iraq & Iran could do. Otherwise some guy could say that "Iran will launch rockets into space that will descend into American airspace before turning into a million small UAVs that home in on high concentrations of C02 and destroy American cities by lazer" and have an equal ammount of consideration.
That like the initial article written by efnwriter is completely impossible and not remotely practical.
I think it "could" get real nasty, I also think it "could" be a cakewalk but to look at either possibility I have to step off from reality.
Otherwise you get what you have in this thread...a bunch of branched out discussions that are built on a false foundation and by default are not plausible.
It's a waste of everyone's time and borders on being Liberalism 101..."the sky could actually fall, so let's freak out and get lost in fantasyland".
Don't get me wrong I hope Russia takes Iraq to the cleaners. Iraq will not exist as it does now within one year, bet on it.
I hope someday that Russia and her people become prosperous and the cultural leaders they once were.
The Muslim mind only cares about Jihad. Their own deaths are but another chapter in the multi-century old fight to convert the entire world to Islam. They don't care so much if they die as long as Israel goes first. This is particularly true with many of the clerics who have great enfluences over the masses.
This is not so worst case as you say. But Pentagon studies have presented scenarios where an America president would surrender to the Soviets to save American lives. I don't see it out of the realm of possibilities with any nuclear power.
One can point to the propaganda machines of the US military and say it could happen any time. But when you look at the effects it must be having on Saddam (to preempt an American attack), you can readily see that it should be coming real soon now. I just don't see Saddam as one who will keep playing a mind game with W.
The Muslim body has a different view of life versus death as was proven in Desert Storm when Olympic sprint records were shattered by thousands of Iraqi soldiers racing to surrender to the nearest reporter or camera man.
Cleric influence over the masses? Oh you mean like the Taliban influence over the masses in Kabul? Gee what ever happen to that influence? LOL! It doesn't exist when the guns are taken away from the clerics.
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