Saddam Has Nukes, Ex-Weapons Inspector Says (reported on Hannity show)

A former U.N. weapons inspector who was renowned for his ability to ferret out Iraqi weapons violations during the late 1990's charged point blank on Thursday that Saddam Hussein now has nuclear weapons.

"I have no doubt that he has nukes," Bill Tierney told nationally syndicated radio host Sean Hannity.

"He's going to use non-persistent chemicals against his own people to put down an insurrection," the ace inspector predicted, before adding chillingly, "He'll use bio and nukes against us."

TIERNEY: Well, there's a few more. One reason why is, during the 90's in the intelligence community, there was just a pathological risk aversion. The reason being was that our president at the time, Bill Clinton, fundamentally changed the purpose of the United States military from fighting and winning wars to crisis management and keeping his poll numbers up.

Now, if you're not out to win, there's no need to take risks. And so what you found is people being very guarded about everything, every kind of assessment you could make. (End of Excerpt)

Before he ran afoul of the system Tierney had built a powerful reputation for credibility, prompting the U.N. to personally recruit him in 1996 for the task of inspecting some of Saddam's most sensitive suspected weapons facilities.

But he was forced to resign two years later amidst charges he was spying for the U.S. Tierney now says he was locked out for doing what he figured was his job - giving the Pentagon targets for military action.

"What I did was identified those people who have sold their souls to keep Saddam in power. I made it my goal to find every place where they are," Tierney told the London's Daily Mirror in October.

Still, his aggressive pursuit of Saddam's weapons violations won him more than a few fans at U.S. Central Command, where Tierney's boss, Army Brig. Gen. Keith Alexander, wrote in one of his job evaluations: "His ability to consistently seek and identify priority target intelligence information is uncanny and is the characteristic that separates him from his contemporaries."

Tierney told Hannity that a 1997 inspection he attempted to conduct at Saddam's Jabal Makhul presidential palace lead him to suspect that the Iraqi dictator already had the bomb.

"Certain things convinced me that they had proscribed items at this presidential site. That led to the inspection in September 1997 where we were locked out. There was something about that. The just came up and said, 'There will be no inspection. Good Day.' And they walked off."

Tierney said the rebuff was "completely different" from other inspections of sensitive sites, where some sort of compromise was always worked out.

Another sign of sinister activity: As Tierney and his team were being turned away, a U.N. helicopter attempting to overfly Jabal Makhul nearly crashed when an Iraqi official on board lunged at the controls.

"That was a distraction to keep that helicopter from going over to the other side of the mountain to see what they were doing" at the facility, said Tierney.

He described Jabal Makhul as a "gigantic" complex of warehouses and underground tunnels, before noting that last year the London Times reported Saddam was storing nuclear weapons in bunkers in and around the Hamrin Mountains.

"There is only one heavily guarded place in the Hamrin Mountains," Tierney told Hannity. "And that's where we were, Jabal Makhul."

Still, despite efforts by Iraqi officials to keep inspectors away from Jabal Makhul, U.N. officials continued to give Saddam the benefit of the doubt, he complained.

"If you had ambiguous reporting; it could mean he has the nukes, it could mean that he doesn't." he said. "Normally the call would be, 'Oh well, that doesn't confirm so therefore he's still developing. He doesn't have it,'" Tierney said he was told.

The ex-inspector predicted that Saddam would likely use his nukes, "maybe (in) Israel, maybe here."

Calling the current inspections "a complete total waste of time," Tierney warned, "You have a leader of a country who's bent on stealing, killing and destroying. And it is time to resolve the issue and solve it. Crisis management is over."

"There's way too much at stake," he added. "We could lose millions more of our citizens unless we wake up and take care of this."

"To late?"

Yep. Not enough of my fellow citizens gave a damn. Now it's too late.

A word to the wise. Kissinger will be the choice for the next investigation too, unless the act of violence is perpetrated quick enough so he can combine the two investigations. It won't matter. He's not going to fault anyone anyway. "It was all one freaky act of nature. You can't stop these things..." Yada, yada, yada...

For those who missed former UN weapons inspector Tierney on Hannity yesterday, he will also be on Hannity & Colmes tonight (9 PM Eastern time on Fox News Channel).

Yesterday on Hannity, Tierney said that Saddam might use a nuke on the U.S. or Israel. He is however strongly supportive of attacking Iraq.

Tierney said that Saddam is cooperating with terrorists. Although Iraq has no delivery capability that could hit the U.S., Saddam could use terrorists or agents to smuggle a nuke into the U.S.

Tierney mentioned a particular mountain area where the inspectors were denied entry in 1997 under very unusual circumstances. He said that a London newspaper (think it was a Feb 1999 op ed piece in the London Times) was an "open source" discussing a secret nuke program including at least one nuke was stored at that location.

Tierney apparently has harder info than the London newspaper article. Reading between the lines of his comments, he has classified info that causes his grave concern and strong belief that the U.S. must attack Iraq.

Tierney claimed that the Iraqi "minder," who struggled with the inspectors on Tierney's watch, was standing behind UN weapons inspector Blitz in a recent press conference (as though the "minder" was part of the UN team). Tierney said something like, "If Blitz can't control his environment at a news conference, I have little confidence in his ability to stand up to Iraqi pressure."

Tierney also speculated that Iraqi intelligence has probably penetrated the UN weapons team.

Tierney said that he worked closely with Scott Ritter and has great respect for the weapons inspections of Ritter. He says he doesn't know why Ritter has turned 180 degrees, but thinks that Ritter is bitter.

Tierney said that Ritter went out on a limb for his country (and the UN weapons inspection program). Clinton admin that sawed off the branch. Then, Clinton admin stabbed Ritter in the back after Ritter was down. Tierney thinks that Ritter's about face on the threat from Iraq has something to do with how Clinton admin abused him.

Tierney debated Hackworth. Hack generally against Iraq attack, but his thinking seems rather unclear. Tierney strongly believes that we MUST stop Iraq before he turns over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to terrorists (or gives more WMD if he has given some already).

Tierney was very articulate, bright, and convincing.

You asked to be updated on Tierney's comments on Hannity & Colmes tonight.

Tierney repeated portions of what he said on Hannity's radio show. He wasn't on very long.

Tierney was asked if his opinion was based in part on classified info. I can't remember how direct he was in his answer, but he said that based on info that he viewed in 2000, he was convinced that he was right.

This reinforced my interpretation of his radio comments. He more clearly implied on H & C that his opinion was based on classified info.

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