Saddam and Iran Prepare WMD

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.

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.

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."

"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.

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.

“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.

After a few nukes on our troops

What worries me is that GW did not get our troops back from China (when they knocked our plane out of the sky and kidnapped our ppl).....until he had a few weeks of negoiating and threatening.........talk.

I am still very angry about that. but.....I guess nuking is another ball game. The principle still the same tho'. IMHO

"Iraq is not going to invade Jordan and Israel because they can't move mechanized infantry across the open desert with the US and Israeli air forces attacking them from the air. Their tanks would be turned into smoking wrecks just as in the first Gulf War."

...Which is exactly why Saddam paid China to upgrade the range and targeting of his scuds - in violation of several treaties, I might add. Also, you are describing conventional war. Saddam is insane, not stupid. He's capable of learning from past mistakes. He is obviously building up his stockpile of unconventional weapons in preparation for an unconventional war.

"Sadaam will never be in a position of power in which the U.S. would have to "negotiate" peace."

Agreed. However, IMO he's still a dangerous psychopath and needs taking out. I doubt he'll attack Jordan, because Jordan will kick his a$$ back into the 11th century....and they'd hve the aid of the US military which is already in Jordan for "military exercises." Same goes for Israel, and Israel doesn't need US help. They would need us to protect their back from PA thugs and the denizons of Lebanon.

What we know he will do...what he has been doing all along, is to fund and export acts of terrorism which become more brutal as the perpetrators go unpunished. Heck, President Bush didn't wake up one day and say "I'm gonna do what my father didn't do. I'm gonna take out Saddam just because he is there." Saddam's antics were known during the Clinton administration. They just weren't widely reported. In the new world which emerged after 9-11, many of us realized - whether we admit it or not - that regimes such as Saddam's are going to have to go or the rest of the world will regret it.

You can stop reading after the first sentence...

"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."

Implies and requires that the US military would not be able to a stop a seriously weakened and poorply supplied Iraqi Military from taking "much of the middle east"....and goes on to imply and require that even if by some miracle of fog of war osmosis Iraq did extend its military out and took control of a large part of middle eastern oil, G.W. Bush and the American people would then pull a European rule of life out of its hat and negotiate with Saddam Hussein as opposed to completely unleashing the US Military on him.

Fundementally flawed, laughable scenario. [That in my mind only a liberal or someone without military competence could think up.]

...Next.

Iraq cannot stop us with conventional troops, even they know that. That is why a first-strike scenario by WMD is becoming more likely.

True enough. But of course, any WMD attack by Iran and/or Iraq would be met with a retaliation by us (with hydrogen bombs) that would shake the foundations of Hell itself. It would be total and utter suicide for them.

"What worries me is that GW did not get our troops back from China (when they knocked our plane out of the sky and kidnapped our ppl).....until he had a few weeks of negoiating and threatening.........talk."

PARDON me, but since that incident is over with, the "loose lips" admonition no longer applies. I have lots of relatives in the military. Some of them are in the 10th Mountain division. I live near enough a military base that I can tell you FOR a FACT that GW was not threatening by TALKING. Within HOURS of the incident occurring, there were MASSIVE overflights which headed for Norfolk - I have lotsa family doewn there too - AND DID NOT COME BACK. Only an idiot would not realize they were being deployed, even if the had no relatives in the military.

Agreed. But the author overlooks the prospect of full retaliatory strikes by the USA, US allies, and Israel. Iraq, along with any other active particpants, would be annihilated in short order. Yes, it would be messy, and there would be many casualties. But this is the worst case scenario. There are many other possibilities.

Saddam is insane, not stupid. He's capable of learning from past mistakes. He is obviously building up his stockpile of unconventional weapons in preparation for an unconventional war.

Yes. Whether he strikes first or he goes out in a "blaze of glory", he is preparing to use the only tactic that has a chance of succeeding. He has so much as said this in the past, that he will inflict enormous pain on his attacker (even if he is himself destroyed in the process). You are right he is insane, and GW is right that his fingers must be removed from the levers of power and destruction.

Well, the same might have been said of Hitler's early days. Germany's economy was in utter destruction, its regions were politically separate, the military was weak, and they were still reviled by the world for WWI. Without firing a shot, he got Germany to reunite, repatriated "German" lands from most of her neighbors, took over quite a bit of land... gaining a very strong position from which he "reach[ed] a position of strength to negotiate from and... not only maintain[ed] his power but extend[ed] it."

We need to be careful out there, while we do what is necessary. Personally, I pray that Iran's younger and highly pro-Western (and near-majority) populations exert more and more influence over the elderly and radically anti-Western imams(?) who are in power. Having them as an ally rather than as an enemy would make things SO much better for us.

There's a lot of interesting information here, but there are pieces that don't quite add up. Even assuming a high level of cooperation between Iraq and Iran, what does Iraq get out this? I can see why Iran thinks this is a good deal (ostensibly not being the target, they would receive, in effect, Sadaam's last-will-and-testament bequeath of WMD material and knowledge). What's in it for Sadaam? If he's dead anyway, and there is a new power in Iraq, all he's done is given Iran a bunch of resources.

For Iran to cooperate with WMD's, or in a WMD first strike, they'd then open themselves up to the same retaliation that will be falling swiftly upon Baghdad. Do they want to get nuked too?

As I say, there's a lot of interesting stuff here, but it all doesn't tie together very effectively. Which makes one think that the writer may be taking some raw intelligence haul and putting the wrong interpretation on it.

You are correct in that this is a possible scenario - an interpretation. I certainly have no personal information on Saddam's plans. However, the conclusions are based on real time data and Saddam's history as well as one very important fact: Saddam knows he will be attacked and knows he will lose on the defensive. From basic small unit tactics to great military minds like Clausewitz, Sun Tzu and Rommell - the soldier who sits and waits loses. The soldier who picks the time,place and battle scenario has the best chance to win.

There is more information I have that is not in the article because I could not confirm it - for instance that Saddam has met with Syria to try to get Syria to join him and to coerce Egypt and other Arab states onto his scheme.
As far as Iran goes - the facts are indisbutable that truck convoys from Saddam's main WMD factory (100's of trucks) went to those caves in Iran. Those caves are heavilly retrofitted and built to be nuke proof. The limited success of mountain operations in Afghanistan shows the effectiveness of using high mountain lairs even against the US.

There is certainly some collusion going on.
Iraq gets their WMD factory preserved and Iran's support by giving them the technology. As you said, Saddam may well want his "legacy" to be the continuation of his WMD programs in the hands of the Ayatollahs . Remember, Iran's people are young and pro -Western, their government is fundamentalist and hanging on by a thread. Saddam's defeat will tip the political balance of power in the region and seriously threaten the Ayatollas in Iran.

Regardless, I appreciate the excellent responses and comments and continue to learn more every day.

Jonathan

http://efreedomnews.com

The most interesting thing here is that Russia is aligning itself with both Iran and Iraq. This supplies some cover to both south Asian countries amd gives Russia the sea routes it has long wanted. The EU is hopeless. The ball is clearly in Bush's court with no good or clear options from a "realpolitic" point of view.

In the longer view, Putin has more to fear from Islamists than from us but he seems fixated on the short term.

You are absolutely right to draw the parallel between Saddam and Hitler - check this out

"When Saddam Hussein grew up, he did so in the shadow of a giant portrait that hung on the wall of his father's house, a portrait of the face of a man his father adored above every other political leader. It was the face of Adolph Hitler" (Jan Willem van der Hoeven) from Saddam's Rise to Power

Saddam's Rise to Power

I believe the "attack to gain negotiation" scenario is plausable for Saddam based on American history. It was the thousands of body bags returning from Vietnam that ended the political will to fight in Vietnam. The US never lost a major battle and could have escalated and easily wiped out North Vietnam, but, as Bernard Fall said:

To win, "the people and the military must emerge on the same side." [Bernard Fall Street Without Joy Stackpole 1961 p.375]

We already are hearing about polls in the US showing the American public's support for attacking Iraq waning based on expected casualties. I heard an interesting comment the other day, to paraphrase - There is no war fervor in the US. Instead, we as a nation are "discussing" the beginnings of a major middle-eastern war with the passion of the pros and cons of a domestic farm bill.

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