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: Irans ulterior motive in providing safekeeping for Saddams 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 Irans experts free access to Iraqs 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 Qaba 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 Jordans 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 Jordans 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.
Russia has a lot more pressing and immediate needs than worrying about the geo-politics of warm-water ports. Russia is the easiest nut to crack. They're more than willing (and only able) to sit on their hands. Bush ignores Chechnya in the future, and makes sure the new Iraq honors their business deals, and they're happy as can be.
You're assuming that Iraq already has nukes. Do you have a source for that information? I believe the main reason for us to force a regime change in Iraq is to prevent Saddam from obtaining nuclear weapons.
I think Russia's just in it for the money. They know Iraq's going to be a parking lot within the next six months or so, and figured, "Hey, if they want our technology for X billion dollars, why not? We get paid up front, and the technology ends up evaporating in a nuclear cloud like everything else. No harm, no foul."
The most important part of data that could be used in this conclusion is readily available and completely disregarded....Iraq's military capabilities. He has absolutely no ability to control any other country in the middle east....not even Kuwait. The presence we have in the Middle East already precludes this.
The scenario offered is rediculous.
"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."
Oh please...a stab at competence. All three of those military minds would tell you Iraq has absolutely no chance to mount an effective military campaign against anyone...save their own people.
"There is more information I have that is not in the article because I could not confirm it"
You obviously didnt try to confirm Iraq's military capabilities.
"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."
Not confirmed...yet shared.
"The limited success of mountain operations in Afghanistan shows the effectiveness of using high mountain lairs even against the US."
Another statement that discredits you completely. Tell me one Mountain operation in which we were unable to take the ground desired? We can take any cave in the Iranian Mountains.
"Saddam may well want his "legacy" to be the continuation of his WMD programs in the hands of the Ayatollahs."
Who are on ground just as shaky as Saddam.
C'mon Dude....you float too much nonsense out there.
Give us a link to one showing support below 60% based on high casualties.
You seem awefully quiet on responses that directly show your article to be nonsense.
Can you address the points I and others have made?
Are you thinking clearly?
After a few magic Iraqi/Iranian nukes being launched, all of Persia and the Euphrates valley would become uninhabitable as a result of the response.
C'mon people.
Now we must remember Iran and Iraq would now have most of the world's oil supplies, so to nuke them would just about end the economy of the world.
We all know that money makes the world go round and the death of a few million people in these WMD attacks would truly be awful, but would the powers that be risk the total shut down of the world's economies. I think not.
This would then put Iraq and Iran in a very strong barginning positon.
The above scenario, is possible and thats all it has to be and that is the main reason why we cannot allow these type of people to have WMD, if we wait until he has them, it will be too late. Strike and Strike Now (before 9/11) before it is to late, they are playing on the weakness of Democracy.
President Bush said he would seek them out and strike before they stuck the US and it's Allies, Well now he has to prove its not just talk.
If Iraq was to launch (WMD) against Saudi Arabia oilfields, while at the same time Iran attacked Bahrain and the US forces, what would be the position of the US and her allies?
And how do you propose that Iran would attack and defeat [Implied] Bahrain, logistically before the US could sweep the Iranians from the Persian Gulf? What armoured columns does Iran have that could withstand American Air assault [same for Iraq as they would need them to sieze any foreign fields]? What crack Airborne Units do they have that wouldnt be shot down by American fighters? What Marine force do they have that could outmaneuver the US navy?
Utterly, Completely incompetent and uninformed scenario.
The position of the the US [The only position that matters] would be obvious.
Now we must remember Iran and Iraq would now have most of the world's oil supplies, so to nuke them would just about end the economy of the world.
Where do you people come from?
In this rediculous scenario that you put forward, nuking Tehran and Baghdad would have a minimal affect on the flow of oil from OPEC nations. Control of Iraqi and Iranian Oil assets would be seized immediately by the US and Europe as well as middle eastern allies .the Sky would not fall.
This would then put Iraq and Iran in a very strong barginning positon.
First of all they cannot pull it off and second of all if they could it would only serve to put them in Nuclear crosshairs
.nothing more.
Think of US, Russia, Canada, Mexico, Norway, Britain, Venezuela, China, Indonesia, UAE, Libya...Nigeria, Gabon...Kuwait, Azerbaijan...
Iraq, on the other hand, may do almost exactly the opposite, attacking Israel, the Gulf, the Oilfields, Jordan, the USA by terror, or almost any place at almost any minute.
Even now, we may be just waiting him out so that he makes the first move, I do not think either he nor we have more than a month or two left at the outside before acting in a big way.
Do you think Israel would begin a systematic vaporization of Iraq only to invite her own destruction by Iraqi WMD scuds, or sue for peace and try to arrange some type of peace treaty like she did with Egypt? After all, we are talking about Israel's existence here. They couldn't stop every inbound scud in 1991, and they won't be able to stop them this time either. Makes for truly interesting thought, hey?
I believe Baghdad has become the worse investment in real estate today, but the present Iraqi regime will remain in power to fulfill Jeremiah's prophecy that has yet to complete- that an Iraqi ruler will rule over Israel.
Winston Churchill talked about standing opposed to evil, even when it is too late to stop it, knowing that it would be better to die than to be subject to it. Personally, I think it is too late already. What makes you think the White House is not already blackmailed by nukes in the hands of sleepers in major US cities? How would you know?
It may be too late to do this without severe pain on the world. Thus, once Gulf War II begins, it may wind up quickly with America withdrawing in defeat. If America suffers from sleepers enough that Bush cannot stomach Iraq's ability to fight back here at home, it could be very bad for Israel as she stands alone.
If America wacks Iraq, Iran turns to Moscow and complains. If Moscow's response is, "They won't destroy Iraq, just change the regime", how do you think the Iranian leadership will feel? Russia's alliances are all at stake here, and you cannot dismiss the significance of damage Bush can do to Moscow in this one action. Bush is playing a high stakes game here. Hopefully, Moscow's $40B treaty is to help America throw Saddam off balance with an improper expectation of support by Moscow. But I just don't know...
His "out of the mainstream" venue of publication appears to serve little more of a purpose than to appeal to and motivate those who would support a war that has virtually no public support in this country and much less worldwide.
Rhodes speaks of disinformation by Iraq but it appears he is engaging in the same... quoting Debka? C'mon, really.
Here is what I see...
Iraq sends two scuds at Israel with chemicals, kills a few thousand. The IDF nukes Baghdad kills millions. Then the unthinkable occurs. (Are you ready for this one?)
Saddam Hussein demands that Israel surrenders or faces countless scuds over the following days.
Sharon realizes that there is no way to defeat a mad man that cares nothing for millions of his own and surrenders rather than face more Israeli casualties.
Sharon agrees to specific terms, which includes America must withdraw from the region, leaving Israel standing alone, and Israel is de facto ruled over by Saddam.
It could happen. We are talking about Saddam here. Since you cannot find and destroy each of his scud missiles, you cannot win against him short of a massive, sudden nuclear strike all across the Iraqi frontier. Then you get into genocide, and stuff like that is very difficult to justify.
Agreed.
Thus, once Gulf War II begins, it may wind up quickly with America withdrawing in defeat. If America suffers from sleepers enough that Bush cannot stomach Iraq's ability to fight back here at home, it could be very bad for Israel as she stands alone.
I completely disagree. Iraq will either collapse with little live fighting or it will be soundly defeated in short order, possibly without Israeli intervention. If Israel is attacked by Iraq she will respond accordingly.
As to the "sleepers", they will be obliterated. Count on it. These pukes are essentially amatuers. They have little comprehension of the horror that THEY face, no matter where they are. Sure, they can explode a bomb here and there. But I am talking about "open season" on them here. Get my meaning? This is the second reason for the second amandment.
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