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Iraq Mission Aborted (Peter Jennings looks likes he's happy w/himself)
ABCNews & World News Tonight ^
| 8.19.02
| Peter McWhethy
Posted on 08/19/2002 4:15:55 PM PDT by mhking
Iraq Mission Aborted
President Bush Calls Off Operation to Take Out Al Qaeda Poison Gas Laboratory
By John McWethy
W A S H I N G T O N, Aug. 19 The CIA and the Pentagon began planning a covert operation into Northern Iraq to destroy what appeared to be a budding chemical weapons laboratory several years ago, but late last week, the president called it off, sources told ABCNEWS.
U.S. forces had been monitoring a small group of al Qaeda operatives for weeks as they experimented with poison gas and deadly toxins killing barnyard animals and at least one human, sources told ABCNEWS. Intelligence sources say the al Qaeda operatives were under the protection of a small radical Kurdish group called Ansar al Islam. Officials say there is no evidence Saddam Hussein's government had any knowledge of their activities.
Most of the experiments, sources say, involved the poison ricin, a by-product of the widely available castor bean plant.
"It is quite toxic, probably seven times more toxic than phosgene which was a chemical weapon used in World War I," said Jonathan Tucker of the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Tucker is the director of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at the Institute.
As a potential weapon of terror, ricin is considered most deadly in a closed room or building, where nearly everyone could die.
"There is currently no treatment and no vaccine for ricin exposure," said Tucker.
Intelligence sources tell ABCNEWS there is evidence the terrorists tested ricin in water, as a powder and as an aerosol. They used it to kill donkeys and chickens, and at one point, the terrorists allegedly exposed a man to the toxin in an Iraqi market.
They then followed him home and watched him die several days later.
As U.S. surveillance intensified, officials concluded the operation was so small and crude that in the final analysis, it was not worth risking American lives to go after it and also not worth the outcry that might follow any U.S. operation inside Iraq.
As part of this operation, intelligence analysts discovered that al Qaeda money was again flowing, that new people had stepped in to manage and encourage far flung projects like this one offering glimpses of a terrorist network trying to put itself back together again.
TOPICS: Breaking News; Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: ansaralislam; chechnya; chechnyaislamakazis; evilopeckerprinces; exportingterrorism; fatah; fatahiscrap; fundingalqaeda; hamas; hamasiscrap; helicopter; iraq; islamakazis; islamakaziwahhabi; israel; jihadiscrap; medievalmonarchy; middleeast; money; muslimworldleague; opecequalterrorism; opeckerislamakazis; opeckerprinces; opecoilterrorism; opecterrorexport; osamabindead; palestinian; palestinians; princesultan; russia; saudi; saudiarabia; saudideathcults; saudienemies; saudiislamakazis; saudisequalnazis; saudispayhamas; saudispushterror; september11; stabintheback; sueopeckerprinces; terror; terrorism; wahhabideathcult; wahhabiislamakazis; weareindeepcrap
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To: Sabertooth
Now how could you go deface such a beautiful building as St. Basil's Cathedral by putting Peter Jennings' picture alongside it? I think he'd be best in front of Lenin's tomb, or the bust of Stalin.
hehehe...I'm gonna lean to the side of Bush on this one. I think the media just got snookered again by this administration. Here's why...Before, the media and many groups were harping on "justified cause" for war with Iraq...Now, the media themselves are pulling the line that there are in fact factories in Iraq up to no good. The talking heads will plant a seed in the viewers heads unknowingly: "Iraq does have bio/chem factories"..Watch, in a couple weeks (maybe less), were gonna hear about all sorts of factories and outlets in Iraq. One media outlet is gonna keep trying to scoop the other over this..
To: Sabertooth
Reading your posts on another thread.........'tis OK. You are to adopt a victim's stance now. So your sensitivity is acknowledged, applauded, and if you play your cards right......worth $$ in the bank!
23
posted on
08/19/2002 4:53:07 PM PDT
by
justshe
To: mhking
Gee! Petah Jennings is proving to be not so bad, after all.
A nice, willing, useful idiot.
Keep reporting the Iraqi WOMD, Petah!!!
:-D
To: lexington minuteman 1775
I am hoping extremely successful psy ops.
25
posted on
08/19/2002 5:01:04 PM PDT
by
justshe
To: lexington minuteman 1775
~~~~OK....CNN has breaking news that we might attack this place and Peter Jennings is reporting the attack is off? what is this all about? ~~~~
I also wouldn't put it past CNN to report, as breaking news, that we ARE going to attack this place....and then do another BREAKING NEWS that 'cooler heads' have talked GW out of it.
26
posted on
08/19/2002 5:03:25 PM PDT
by
justshe
To: mhking
Isn't it time to get back to our boycott of the alphabet soup networks? Isn't it time to write and call their sponsers and threaten to leave their merchandise on the shelves if they don't pull their support for Marxist reporting? Isn't it time that we protested outside of local stations demanding that they drop their coverage? Isn't it time we went after local business that advertise with these stations?
To: lexington minuteman 1775
OK....CNN has breaking news that we might attack this place and Peter Jennings is reporting the attack is off? what is this all about?Par for the course - I had the local news on, and when they went to WNT, PJ practically looked like he was jumping up and down in his seat.
28
posted on
08/19/2002 5:07:08 PM PDT
by
mhking
To: Sabertooth
Anyone check PJennings green card lately? What's the INS toll-free number?
/heh
29
posted on
08/19/2002 5:07:12 PM PDT
by
fone
To: Litany
I almost threw a knife at the TV (I was making supper) when I heard him say, quite gleefully, something to the effect that 'the Bush administration will be embarrassed'. When I first heard him, I thought I was hearing things.
30
posted on
08/19/2002 5:08:06 PM PDT
by
mhking
To: mhking
I am not discouraged by this. Any Liberal drip could only be having a superficial surface high as a result of such tomfoolery.
If the President called it off then it was nothing...if it was something, then the President would've hit it. It could've easily been struck by an air strike followed on by SpecFor troops being inserted to mop up.
I dont know what Jennings would be grinning at.
On the contrary, it shows we have a pretty good idea of what is and isnt going on inside of Iraq and had CNN not broken the videos they have, I doubt this would've even come to light.
I am grinning at what Jennings doesnt know.
~grin~
To: mhking
The CIA and the Pentagon began planning a covert operation into Northern Iraq to destroy what appeared to be a budding chemical weapons laboratory several years ago, but late last week, the president called it off, sources told ABCNEWS. So he called off the covert op. It's now going to be an overt op. ABC just doesn't tell you "the rest of the story". Hey Saddam, we are coming for you!
32
posted on
08/19/2002 5:09:36 PM PDT
by
hattend
Comment #33 Removed by Moderator
To: alloysteel
...Amen.
To: MissAmericanPie
Our family never stopped boycotting their sponsors.
35
posted on
08/19/2002 5:11:53 PM PDT
by
EODGUY
To: mhking
To: unix
...Amen again.
To: Sabertooth
To canaries?
38
posted on
08/19/2002 5:15:52 PM PDT
by
norton
To: lexington minuteman 1775
Consider the source(s). Neither CNN nor ABC
knows what the * they are talking about. Someone probably put a virus in the teleprompter, and Lord knows they have little comprehension of reality, certainly not enough to determine that what they report is either truthful or coherent.
39
posted on
08/19/2002 5:16:16 PM PDT
by
fone
To: VaBthang4
LOL....you are exactly right....what everyone is overlooking in this story is that we have SF on the ground,(it seems for some time now) gathering intel and planning.....
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