Iraq Unloading WMD Into Syria.

It would seem Bashar Assad is out running his mouth again.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in remarks aired on Saturday the creation of a federation based on ethnic divisions in neighboring Iraq would be dangerous, in an apparent reference to a Kurdish autonomy.
Assad, a stern opponent to the U.S-led war and occupation of Iraq, also said that the United States and its allies had failed to achieve any of the goals of their campaign.

"There is no doubt that they (U.S.-led forces) have failed," said Assad in an interview with the Qatar-based Arab television station al-Jazeera.

Assad, whose country is home to about two million Syrian Kurds, said: "A federation which is based on race or ethnic groups is a dangerous thing."

Now is it just me or does this echo his idea that discussing ethnicity in a country is a bad idea. If you would remember the interview I put up earlier he tried to paint talking about the Kurds as a dangerous and unlawful thing to do. Now if Bashar is simply a puppet of the old guard or some holy reformer, then why is he stirring up trouble? The Syrian old guard would rather want to avoid US retribution and keep the status quo. Instead you have Bashar out criticizing a peoples natural freedom to exist and the US efforts in Iraq. Why must the Kurds be kept down for so long, what have they done that is so dangerous to Syria or Iraq? It would seem that Bashar is just another bigot politician who is anti west, a liar, and dangerous.

*note the latter part of my post is purely opinion*

Link

fuel to the fire they want to ignite and allow to eat all the crop and individuality in all our masses. yes the other countries like russia and n.korea are just waiting till the right time. because this is only a matter of time before everyones a part of this. plus we have a possibility of the wmd's not even being in syria. nowadays people dig underground all the time. just to hide things. and whoever said we know of all their hiding places and locations of these mountain areas?

Well well, as reported earlier by Seeker and myself, Syrian terrorists were captured in Jordan last month with 17.5 tons of VX gas that were going to be used in the Jordanian capitol. Now I made the claim that the WMD had to come from Iraq via Syria, reinforcing my earlier claim that Syria had taken on Iraq's WMD before the US led invasion in March. This was only complimentary to intelligence that Syria is actively arming Iraqi insurgents, stole from the Iraq oil for food program, and had granted asylum to Iraqi officials.

Now back to the Jordanian attack, this report will only draw one more line from Iraq's WMD program to Syrian bunkers.

At least one of the al-Qaida plotters arrested in Jordan earlier this month as part of a weapons of mass destruction plot that Jordanian officials say could have killed 80,000 people revealed on Monday that he was trained in Iraq before the U.S. invaded in March 2003.

In a confession broadcast on Jordanian television, the unnamed WMD conspirator revealed: "In Iraq, I started training in explosives and poisons. I gave my complete obedience to [Abu Musab al] Zarqawi," the al-Qaida WMD specialist whose base of operations was in Iraq.

Excerpts from the WMD conspirator's confession broadcast by ABC's "Nightline" late Monday show that the WMD plot was planned and trained for in Iraq more than a year before the U.S. invasion, with the terror suspect admitting, "After the fall of Afghanistan, I met Zarqawi again in Iraq."

U.S. forces vanquished the Taliban government in Kabul in December 2001 - 15 months before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

"Some of the details appear to be fairly significant in terms of the planning," reported "Nightline's" Chris Bury: "$170,000, a lot of meetings, getting instructions from people in Iraq, people inside Syria."

"I started training in explosives and poisons"

Interesting that this would come from a man caught in a plot to release VX gas into Jordan. Who was training him with poisons I wonder? The same weapon that went missing in the aftermath of the weapons inspections in Iraq. Now as you can see the man also testified to receiving help from both Syria and Iraq.

So what does this article reveal? Well: deep connections between terror and Saddam, connections to Syrian intelligence, connections to mass destruction.

So a Syrian trained in Iraq is caught with 17.5 tons of VX gas after the Iraqi invasion, whats else is there to say?

Link

Well well here we are again.

The fact that Iraq did not possess any nuclear weapons is something we can agree on, but there was evidence that they continued to fund a limited development program. Now a possible Syrian/Iraq transfer of nuclear components is something I have stayed away from, but this article dredges up some questions.

Last week, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton said Adbul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist who sold nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea, had "several other" customers who may want the bomb. Western diplomats in Vienna said Bolton was clearly referring to Syria.

One atomic energy expert, who follows nuclear intelligence closely, said Bolton leads a faction in President Bush's administration that believes they have strong evidence Syria is operating uranium-enrichment centrifuges.

But a U.S. official, who asked not to be named, warned the intelligence on Syria had not dispelled all doubts.

"Those who are pushing the idea that Syria has centrifuges have been held back by other members of the inter-agency community who question the veracity of the claim," he said.

Several Western diplomats who follow the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), have been saying for months that Syria was a customer of Khan's.

"Syria certainly had contact with Khan," said a non-U.S. Western diplomat, adding that suspicions of Syrian research in atomic weapons have existed for decades

Mr. Khan has certainly been on the radar of international intelligence agencies and it would seem that his list of customers is steadily growing. International agencies (read non Western) are apt to agree that Syria has a nuclear development program. Yet Syria does not appear to be Mr. Khans number one customer, so this begs the question.

Where else would have Syria received nuclear secrets?

Although an actual weapon was never fabricated, Iraq did have a detailed development program leading up to the war. Now the major pieces of this program may indeed have been destroyed, but that wouldnt compensate for the vast ammounts of scientists left over from the program. Human resources cannot be inventoried or dismantled.

Ive established the fact that Syria is a welcome refuge for former regime members and I have offered pictures and documents detailing the scope of Iraqs nuclear research; so this leads me to my conclusion.

Syria's nuclear ambitions could certainly have received help from Saddam's rule and the dispora of scientists following his fall. The connections between these two countries run deeper than some would acknowledge, but none the less they paint a stark picture.

Link

CONJECTURE

Main Entry: 1con�jec�ture
Pronunciation: k&n-'jek-ch&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French or Latin; Middle French, from Latin conjectura, from conjectus, past participle of conicere, literally, to throw together, from com- + jacere to throw -- more at JET
1 obsolete a : interpretation of omens b : SUPPOSITION
2 a : inference from defective or presumptive evidence b : a conclusion deduced by surmise or guesswork c : a proposition (as in mathematics) before it has been proved or disproved

Agent47: "Although an actual weapon was never fabricated, Iraq did have a detailed development program leading up to the war. Now the major pieces of this program may indeed have been destroyed, but that wouldnt compensate for the vast ammounts of scientists left over from the program. Human resources cannot be inventoried or dismantled. "

So, um, why is it that the whole reason all these people are dying and being tortured is because the US government claimed to have rock-solid evidence of DEPLOYABLE WMD's? Hmmm?

An interesting post in FR translated this to english from Japanese so I am posting a full reading of the article as translated from the Japanese daily Sankie Shinbum,

Begin translation,
"Ryongchon Explosion Occurred While Transporting Military Cargo?

Sankei Shimbun, a Japanese Daily, reported on 7th (of May, 2004), "In Ryongchon Blast, Syrian engineers were killed and wounded. A wagon carrying a large cargo had a particularly heavy damage, revealed on 6th (of May, 2004) by a military news source who has great expertise on Korean matters." According to the source, "the content of the cargo is unknown. However, after the accident, N. Korean military personnels in protective suits arrived at the scene, and recovered the remains of the destroyed wagon. We strongly suspect that the accident occurred while transporting a top-secret cargo between N. Korea and Syria."

The paper went on to say, citing the source, "Passengers in the wagon were engineers dispatched from Syria's Scientific Investigation and Research Center(CERS). CERS's goal is promoting science and technology. It is also suspected of a major involvement in the Syria's development of WMD's."

It also reported, "Engineers were in a separate compartment in a wagon from the cargo compartment. It is not clear whether the cargo was the primary source of the explosion or the secondary source after explosion from other wagons. However, it is true that this wagon had the most extensive damage. Close to 10 personnels of both Syrians and N. Koreans were either killed or wounded."

Syrian casualties went home via a Syrian transport plane on May 1st, which was there to pick up the cargo. All personnels involved in the transport (of Syrians), both Syrians and N. Koreans, were again wearing protective suits.

The paper further added, "The behaviors of N. Korea and Syria showed that this cargo is of utmost secret nature, which they never want to disclose. Countries like America suspect that N. Korea and Syria are cooperating the development of Syrian Scud D missiles or chemical weapons."
End tranlation

Original Japanese article in Senkei Shinbum

Then I wanted to add this editorial by Larry Elder entitled,
"The curious lack of curiosity about WMD" which has many good points about Syrian involvment in WMD
The John Loftus Interview

I don't think the Syrian connection can be suppressed much longer and that the true extent of complicity in hiding and then distributing WMD from Iraqs stockpile. Hopefully information will come to light in the major media and government circles and not in the aftermath of another successful attack.

Phoenix

First off that was an excellent article Phoenix.

Now some have asked if there is so much overwhelming intelligence that points to a Syrian/Iraqi WMD transaction, then why has the media reported little?

Well journalist Larry Elder had the same question and recently interviewed intelligence insider John Loftus.

John Loftus is a former Army officer, served as a Justice Department prosecutor, investigated CIA cases of Nazi war criminals, and is an author of several books. Loftus once received a Pulitzer Prize nomination.

The interviewed yielded some interesting insite and only furthered connected the dots between Bashar and Saddam.

John Loftus: There's a lot of reason to think (the source of the chemicals) might be Iraq. We captured Iraqi members of al-Qaeda, who've been trained in Iraq, planned for the mission in Iraq, and now they're in Jordan with nerve gas. That's not the kind of thing you buy in a grocery store. You have to have obtained it from someplace.

Larry Elder: They couldn't have obtained it from Syria?

Loftus: Syria does have the ability to produce certain kinds of nerve gasses, but in small quantities. The large stockpiles were known to be in Iraq. The best U.S. and allied intelligence say that in the 10 weeks before the Iraq war, Saddam's Russian adviser told him to get rid of all the nerve gas. It would be useless against U.S. troops; the rubber suits were immune to it. So they shipped it across the border to Syria and Lebanon and buried it. Now, in the last few weeks, there's a controversy that Syria has been trying to get rid of this stuff.

They're selling it to al-Qaeda is one supposition. We know the Sudanese government demanded that the Syrian government empty its warehouse in Khartoum where they've been hiding illegal missiles along with components of Weapons of Mass Destruction. But there's no doubt these guys confessed on Jordanian television that they received the training for this mission in Iraq. . . And from the description it appears this is the form of nerve gas known as VX. It's very rare, and very tough to manufacture . . . one of the most destructive chemical mass-production weapons that you can use

Mr. Loftus is reffering to the recently foiled Jordan WMD attack, where terrorists were caught with almost 20 tons of VX nerve agent. Mr. Loftus points out that the type of VX is a very potent and dificult to manufacture strain. Although Syria is capable of manufacturing VX, Iraq had had a VX program for over 20 years. Once more, Saddam was aware of the fact that coalition troops would have been protected from a WMD retaliation for the invasion of Iraq. Mr. Loftus also comes back to the recent news concerning Syria storing WMD in Sudan to hide them from Western inspectors.

So lets summize, Iraqi and Syrian terrorists were caught with 20 tons of rare VX nerve agent, had received training in Iraq, had confessed to receiving help from Syria, and at the same time Syria is trying to hide WMD in Sudan.

Now lets get to the final part of the interview.

Elder: You said that the Russians told Saddam, "There is going to be an invasion. Get rid of your chemical and biological weapons."

Loftus: Sure. It would only bring the United Nations down on their heads if they were shown to really have Weapons of Mass Destruction. It's not generally known, but the CIA has found 41 different material breaches where Saddam did have a weapons of mass destruction program of various types. It was completely illegal. But no one could find the stockpiles. And the liberal press seems to be focusing on that.

"41 violations of UN sanctions

This would seem to negate some of the arguments presented against the case of Iraq WMD. Iraq was breaking international law, and just because "large" stockpiles have not been found that does not prove they never existed. Let me remind you that Seeker presented several pieces of evidence that showed smaller stockpiles of weapons that went under the press radar. The media is now towing the line that Bush lied, so in order to do that they must not report news. Main stream media reported a foiled Jordanian VX attack but did not carry any of the confession stories or the Loftus interview. Once again I have to say, the facts speak for themselves and there is growing proof that Syria has connections to Iraq's WMD.

Link

Yoda: "Well I posted earlier on this, it's old news

But Jacko... can you debunk this ?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Don't see you in on the debate..."

Yes, yes I can debunk that.

"In virtually every case -- chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic missiles -- the United States has found the weapons and the programs that the Iraqi dictator successfully concealed for 12 years from U.N. weapons inspectors."

Um, too bad he doesn't actually back up any of this. "In virtually every case"? Whaaa?

"The Iraq Survey Group, ISG, whose intelligence analysts are managed by Charles Duelfer, a former State Department official and deputy chief of the U.N.-led arms-inspection teams, has found "hundreds of cases of activities that were prohibited" under U.N. Security Council resolutions, a senior administration official tells Insight.

"There is a long list of charges made by the U.S. that have been confirmed, but none of this seems to mean anything because the weapons that were unaccounted for by the United Nations remain unaccounted for."

Both Duelfer and his predecessor, David Kay, reported to Congress that the evidence they had found on the ground in Iraq showed Saddam's regime was in "material violation" of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, the last of 17 resolutions that promised "serious consequences" if Iraq did not make a complete disclosure of its weapons programs and dismantle them in a verifiable manner."

Hundreds of cases of activities that were prohibited? As opposed to find, say, ACTUAL weapons? What kind of prohibited activities is he talking about, you ask? Well, he doesn't go into detail, oddly.

"Both Duelfer and Kay found Iraq had "a clandestine network of laboratories and safe houses with equipment that was suitable to continuing its prohibited chemical- and biological-weapons [BW] programs," the official said. "They found a prison laboratory where we suspect they tested biological weapons on human subjects." "

SUSPECTED that they tested biological weapons on prisoners? What biological weapons? Anthrax? Aspirin? Do they suspect this due to actual evidence? Again, no extra info.

"They found equipment for "uranium-enrichment centrifuges" whose only plausible use was as part of a clandestine nuclear-weapons program."

Equipment that was grabbed from a whole bunch of places then put together by the US team, or an actual pile of parts next to an instruction manual? Again, no info.

"Among Kay's revelations, which officials tell Insight have been amplified in subsequent inspections in recent weeks:


A prison laboratory complex that may have been used for human testing of BW agents and "that Iraqi officials working to prepare the U.N. inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the U.N." Why was Saddam interested in testing biological-warfare agents on humans if he didn't have a biological-weapons program? "

"May have been for human testing"? Based on what clues? WHAT biological warfare agents? Conjecture.

""Reference strains" of a wide variety of biological-weapons agents were found beneath the sink in the home of a prominent Iraqi BW scientist. "We thought it was a big deal," a senior administration official said. "But it has been written off [by the press] as a sort of 'starter set.'" "

Yeah ONE VIAL OF BOTULINUM! He implies that the press is to blame for "writing it off" when in fact it's totally laughable. A frickin vial of botulinum in some guys freezer. WMD beneath the sink!!!! Ahhhh!

"A line of unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, or drones, "not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 kilometers [311 miles], 350 kilometers [217 miles] beyond the permissible limit.""

And, uh, did these UAVs have weapons on them? Cropdusters? This was debunked AGES ago, when they found the UAVs to be flimsy and crap. What are they gonna do, fly one of these things with a range of 500 MILES across the Atlantic to attack the US?

""Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited Scud-variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the U.N." "

They were also used in Samoud missiles, which were NOT prohibited by the UN.

""Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1,000 kilometers [621 miles] -- well beyond the 150-kilometer-range limit [93 miles] imposed by the U.N. Missiles of a 1,000-kilometer range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets throughout the Middle East, including Ankara [Turkey], Cairo [Egypt] and Abu Dhabi [United Arab Emirates].""

Oh no , PLAN and ADANCED DESIGN WORK. And they could have threatened Turkey, Egypt and Abu Dhabi? Er, correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't that be for these 3 countries to worry about?

"The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction concluded that Saddam "probably has stocked at least 100 metric tons [MT] and possibly as much as 500 MT of CW [chemical warfare] agents -- much of it added in the last year.""

Haha! National Intelligence ESTIMATE! Good conclusion too. "PROBABLY HAS STOCKED".

Your tax dollars at work.

"That assessment was based, in part, on conclusions contained in the final report from U.N. weapons inspectors in 1999, which highlighted discrepancies in what the Iraqis reported to the United Nations and the amount of precursor chemicals U.N. arms inspectors could document Iraq had imported but for which it no longer could account. "

YEah it gets better. Based on a 1999 report that the UN sent out that it claimed it "couldn't account for some WMD's".... Um, does that seem ironclad to you? Using an old report that pretty much says we can't find them?

"In fact, as recent evidence made public by a former operations officer for the Coalition Provisional Authority's intelligence unit in Iraq shows, some of those stockpiles have been found - not all at once, and not all in nice working order -- but found all the same...

But another reason for the media silence may stem from the seemingly undramatic nature of the "finds" Hanson and others have described. The materials that constitute Saddam's chemical-weapons "stockpiles" look an awful lot like pesticides, which they indeed resemble.

"Pesticides are the key elements in the chemical-agent arena," Hanson says. "In fact, the general pesticide chemical formula (organophosphate) is the 'grandfather' of modern-day nerve agents."

The United Nations was fully aware that Saddam had established his chemical-weapons plants under the guise of a permitted civilian chemical-industry infrastructure. Plants inspected in the early 1990s as CW production facilities had been set up to appear as if they were producing pesticides, or in the case of a giant plant near Fallujah, chlorine, which is used to produce mustard gas.

When coalition forces entered Iraq, "huge warehouses and caches of 'commercial and agricultural' chemicals were seized and painstakingly tested by Army and Marine chemical specialists," Hanson writes. "What was surprising was how quickly the ISG refuted the findings of our ground forces and how silent they have been on the significance of these caches."

Caches of "commercial and agricultural" chemicals don't match the expectation of "stockpiles" of chemical weapons. But, in fact, that is precisely what they are. "At a very minimum," Hanson tells Insight, "they were storing the precursors to restart a chemical-warfare program very quickly.""

OMFG this is hilarious. THEY WERE STORING THE PRECURSORS TO RESTART A PROGRAM VERY QUICKLY! Ahahaha. So they had the ingredients (which can be used in many different capacities other than chemical agents) in different places all over the country, using them in a civilian capacity and this is somehow PROOF of something?

"Kay and Duelfer came to a similar conclusion, telling Congress under oath that Saddam had built new facilities and stockpiled the materials to relaunch production of chemical and biological weapons at a moment's notice. At Karbala, U.S. troops stumbled upon 55-gallon drums of pesticides at what appeared to be a very large "agricultural supply" area, Hanson says. Some of the drums were stored in a "camouflaged bunker complex" that was shown to reporters -- with unpleasant results.

"More than a dozen soldiers, a Knight-Ridder reporter, a CNN cameraman, and two Iraqi POWs came down with symptoms consistent with exposure to a nerve agent," Hanson says. "But later ISG tests resulted in a proclamation of negative, end of story, nothing to see here, etc., and the earlier findings and injuries dissolved into nonexistence. Left unexplained is the small matter of the obvious pains taken to disguise the cache of ostensibly legitimate pesticides. One wonders about the advantage an agricultural-commodities business gains by securing drums of pesticide in camouflaged bunkers 6 feet underground. The 'agricultural site' was also colocated with a military ammunition dump -- evidently nothing more than a coincidence in the eyes of the ISG." "

Haha, stop, stop, I can't take it anymore. Why would they HIDE legitimate pesticides?! Why that's just PURE EVIL.

"That wasn't the only significant find by coalition troops of probable CW stockpiles, Hanson believes. Near the northern Iraqi town of Bai'ji, where Saddam had built a chemical-weapons plant known to the United States from nearly 12 years of inspections, elements of the 4th Infantry Division found 55-gallon drums containing a substance identified through mass spectrometry analysis as cyclosarin -- a nerve agent.

Nearby were surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, gas masks and a mobile laboratory that could have been used to mix chemicals at the site.

"Of course, later tests by the experts revealed that these were only the ubiquitous pesticides that everybody was turning up," Hanson says. "It seems Iraqi soldiers were obsessed with keeping ammo dumps insect-free, according to the reading of the evidence now enshrined by the conventional wisdom that 'no WMD stockpiles have been discovered.'" "

Yes, after the FIRST test they thought they found something. Subsequent tests found that they were pesticides. Nice try on spin here, but unless you're 5 years old you won't fall for it. And the mobile lab is a lie.

"At Taji -- an Iraqi weapons complex as large as the District of Columbia -- U.S. combat units discovered more "pesticides" stockpiled in specially built containers, smaller in diameter but much longer than the standard 55-gallon drum.

Hanson says he still recalls the military sending digital images of the canisters to his office, where his boss at the Ministry of Science and Technology translated the Arabic-language markings. "They were labeled as pesticides," he says. "Gee, you sure have got a lot of pesticides stored in ammo dumps.""

Saaaay, maybe since they couldn't actually use the ammo dumps AS ammo dumps (since they were prohibited from owning most weapons by the UN anyway), maybe, JUST MAYBE they might be using these dumps instead as storage for pesticides (which you really don't want to store in an old building in downtown Baghdad).

"Again, this January, Danish forces found 120-millimeter mortar shells filled with a mysterious liquid that initially tested positive for blister agents. But subsequent tests by the United States disputed that finding.

"If it wasn't a chemical agent, what was it?" Hanson asks. "More pesticides? Dish-washing detergent? From this old soldier's perspective, I gain nothing from putting a liquid in my mortar rounds unless that stuff will do bad things to the enemy.""

Pfft. These were found to NOT have nerve agents, and were so old that they were believed to have dated back to the 1980-88 war with Iran.

"What does 3.9 tons of VX look like? "It could fit in one large garage," the official says. Assuming, of course, that Saddam would assemble every bit of VX gas his scientists had produced at a single site, that still amounts to one large garage in an area the size of the state of California. "

Haha, except they fail to mention that the garage would have so much safety and storage equipment. What, you just dump all this VX crap into a little kiddie pool and cover it with Saran Wrap? Do you have any idea what kind of technology it takes to store nerve agents in order to ensure they don't leak or degrade more quickly?

"Senior administration officials stress that the investigation will continue as inspectors comb through millions of pages of documents in Iraq and attempt to interview Iraqi weapons scientists who have been trained all their professional lives to conceal their activities from the outside world.

"The conditions under which the ISG is working are not very conducive," one official said. "But this president wants the truth to come out. This is not an exercise in spinning or censoring." "

This is not an exercise in spinning or censoring."

This whole article is nothing BUT an exercise in spinning. It's honestly the funniest article I've read in weeks.


Any comments, Yoda? Do you have any corroborating evidence? Do you want any links to back up my assertions or do you want to find them yourself?

New evidence: Saddam's WMD in Lebanon (got there via Syria) of course it is suspected that Syria kept the cream of the crop,

Iraqi WMD in Lebanon

Snippet:
"But over the last few months, U.S. intelligence managed to track the Iraqi WMD convoy to Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.

Through the use of satellites, electronic monitoring and human intelligence, the intelligence community has determined that much, if not all, of Iraq's biological and chemical weapons assets are being protected by Syria, with Iranian help, in the Bekaa Valley".

With Hezbollah supported by both the Iranians and the Syrians its only a matter of them unleashing their puppets the Hezbollah to carry out an attack to be blamed on Hezbollah but not either of their countries.

Okay, for future reference:

If an article uses ONLY terms like "intelligence sources" and "government contacts" without ever mentioned any names, don't take it as gospel.

Read this paragraph from the link to see what i mean:

"Through the use of satellites, electronic monitoring and human intelligence, the intelligence community has determined that much, if not all, of Iraq's biological and chemical weapons assets are being protected by Syria, with Iranian help, in the Bekaa Valley."

None of it is corroborated. None. "...the intelligence community has determined that much, if not all, of Iraq's biological and chemical weapons assets"... What does that mean exactly?

Boolsheet is what it means.

I think for future reference: when you hear the term "Boolsheet" in relation to anothers post one should have to corraborate that term with names, dates, links and a full trestiese on what your problem is.

There is a huge amount of circumstantial evidence publicly available that indeed the WMD went to Syria and then on to Lebanon and the Sudan, on the contrary view there really is no evidence whatsoever that supports an opinion fitting a political agenda, wish I may, wish I might, so it could be so...........thats what I'm hearing.

Phoenix: "There is a huge amount of circumstantial evidence publicly available that indeed the WMD went to Syria and then on to Lebanon and the Sudan, on the contrary view there really is no evidence whatsoever that supports an opinion fitting a political agenda, wish I may, wish I might, so it could be so...........thats what I'm hearing."

Er, the contrary view being that there were no WMDs? Um, my proof on that is that no WMDs have been found that would have constituted a threat to the US< thus totally destroying the lie that this was self-defense, as it was first claimed to be as a reason. Remember the term "Imminent Danger"?

And by the way, people who claim there ARE WMD's in Iraq despite the fact that none have been found are the ones that are politicizing this issue.

I am basing my stance on reality. And in reality, nothing has been found to justify this war.

Thanks!

agricultural machinery = tank without a barrel
huntingweapons = kalashnikovs with a colourstripe on
mining explosives = grenades,rockets...

meanwhile one important land involved in this case is forgotten...iran !
calmly they have time now to get their nukes ready to be used...

you see... that is what anti american propaganda does !
they take your attention away and point it to something that's got
only one goal:manipulate your thinking and point of view.

(same technique as magicians do)

GODSINTHEUNIVERSE: Say no to crack.

Well its ok for you to believe what you want but don't tell me what reality is, your reality is based on a party line that is butressed by biased media. Your reality might be different if you ignored the hype and researched past the standard pat answers fed to you by the media, again if thats where you want to halt your knowledge thats your business.

If on the otherhand you want to increase your knowledge of the subject here's a fun question to start on,

Hundreds of 55 gallon barrels containing precursor chemicals labeled as pesticides were found in a camoflaged storage area adjacent to one of Iraqs largest ammo dumps, What was the reason they were there?

A. They were intended to keep the sand fleas off of the ammo next door.
B. The reason the chemicals were camoflaged was to enable a surprise spring offensive on the insect population, we did'nt want them to escape prematurely.
C. We did not want the UN inspectors to take our pesticides to use on the "Bugs" in their hotel rooms.
D. We needed a ready supply to mix into deadlier agents upon orders from above.
E. Its normal to store pesticides under camoflage, surely you do this in your country? don't you?


I kind of go with "C" because those inspectors really did have a "Bug" problem if you know what I mean.

Now I know this seems like a silly answer to a prior post but its also very very silly to postulate that these chemicals were innocently stored under camo next to the very ammo that it would be loaded into once mixed together. And its even funnier to say this did not constitute part of Saddams WMD.

And this comes from all your years and years of working as an intelligence analyst in terrorism Jako?

You must surely have some sort of background in this to be so certain that there were no wmd in Iraq before the war, after all, the world was yelling before the war that Saddam had WMD.

In light on how you seem so knowledgable that there were never WMD and they were not moved to other countries, i will have to say then that the US has not killed any Iraqi civilians and if so prove it. Now since you seem to not want to accept any proof from official sources and data collected on the net, we will not accept such data either. Care to provide other proof that us soldiers have killed Iraqi civilians? Do not show any interviews from soldiers who say this, since we have presented statements from Iraqi officials who defected and spoke about the wmd that Saddam had, and you don't want to accept this as proof either....

Imo, you are just a kid trying to play spy Jako.



[Edited on 21-5-2004 by Muaddib]

Granted an older dispatch but the information is important regardless. In my original post I accused the Syrians of stashing the WMD in the Bekaa Valley under guard by Iranian, Syrian, and Hezbullah irregulars. The Bekaa Valley is a stronghold of Hezbullah but early in 2003 a series of explosions occured at the facility.

Western intelligence analysts believe that a large explosion at a Hezbollah base in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley resulted from the use of weapons, including long-range missiles, smuggled from Iraq, Ha'aretz reports.

Following the explosion Monday, heard 20 miles away, Lebanese sources said Hezbollah closed off the area around Jinta and barred media crews from entering. Ambulances rushed to the scene, but no information about casualties was forthcoming.

Western intelligence experts believe the explosion was connected to an Iraqi arms shipment that reached Hezbollah a few days before the blast.

Interesting accident is it not? Follow up reports werent forthcoming as Hezbollah was able to draw a media blackout regarding the event. Makes you wonder what weapons would create such a blast. Long range missiles perhaps?

Link

Muaddib: "In light on how you seem so knowledgable that there were never WMD and they were not moved to other countries, i will have to say then that the US has not killed any Iraqi civilians and if so prove it. "

I NEVER said Saddam never had any WMDs. What I've said is that he had none left by 2002, and even if he did have a couple kicking around THEY POSED NO THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES.

Chemical and biological weapons DEGRADE over time, all you need to have if basic chemistry knowledge to realize that. There was satellite surveillance of Iraq for MONTHS before and after the invasion, they would've been able to tell if something was being moved.

"Do not show any interviews from soldiers who say this, since we have presented statements from Iraqi officials who defected and spoke about the wmd that Saddam had, and you don't want to accept this as proof either.... "

BS. Please please please show me these "statements from Iraqi officials who defected and spoke about WMD". Who are you talking about? Ahmed Chalabi? Hussein Kamel in Newsweek? Please enlighten me.

The really pathetic thing about your argument is that Saddam Hussein is IN U.S. CUSTODY. They can interrogate however they want and find out where all his "apparent" remaining WMDs are, and he really has nothing to lose or gain by telling them where it is. And yet, nothing found.

Kindly explain that aspect of it, too. Why would he continue hiding them, and WHY would the people who know about it not give up the caches? Not even one person is going to spill the beans to the Americans about huge stockpiles of WMDs?

"Imo, you are just a kid trying to play spy Jako."

Well, your opinion has been shown to be spotty at best when dealing with logic, so that really doesn't bother me.

Phoenix: "Now I know this seems like a silly answer to a prior post but its also very very silly to postulate that these chemicals were innocently stored under camo next to the very ammo that it would be loaded into once mixed together. And its even funnier to say this did not constitute part of Saddams WMD. "

So, he was keeping pesticides in barrels just so if he need to he could whip up a batch of Anthrax to destroy America? You read too many Robert Ludlum books. Do you in fact know how many chemicals can be classified as "dual use"? Laundry detergent is one.

You're saying that this was enough of a reason to invade Iraq? Pesticides?

"Now I know this seems like a silly answer to a prior post but its also very very silly to postulate that these chemicals were innocently stored under camo next to the very ammo that it would be loaded into once mixed together. "

Aha. So you just pour these pesticides into mortar shells with a bucket and a plastic funnel and voila, WMD? Wow, and here I thought that it was, you know, incredibly complicated and scientific. My mistake.

It is typical of people in the "No WMD" camp to minimize what can't be easily argued away, even when the evidence kills them they'll still be in denial saying "it was just laundry detergent"

Originally post by Jakomo,
"So, he was keeping pesticides in barrels just so if he need to he could whip up a batch of Anthrax to destroy America? You read too many Robert Ludlum books. Do you in fact know how many chemicals can be classified as "dual use"? Laundry detergent is one."

Ludlum novels always seemed a bore to me, they follow the same tired formula.
First off who mentioned Anthrax? and as far as the destruction of America is concerned, that was not the issue. The issue was to wake up one day and hear that 20,000 fellow citizens were dead in a chemical attack (refer to thwarted Jordanian attack, not so far fetched) that was supplied by Iraq to third party terrorist's.

It is disingenious at best to compare laundry detergent to the following chemicals list below,

In the early stages of its chemical weapons program, Iraq imported all its precursor chemicals. Over time, however, Iraq sought to obtain the capability to produce indigenously all the precursors required for the production of the agents noted above. Iraq acknowledges that it had or was on the brink of having the capability to produce in quantity the precursors for tabun (GA): D4 and phosphorous oxychloride (POCl3), the sarin/cyclosarin (GB/GF) precursors: methylphosphonyl difluoride (DF), methyl phosphonyl dichloride (MPC), dimethylmethyl phosphonate (DMMP), trimethylphosphite (TMP), hydrogen fluoride (HF), phosphorous trichloride (PCl3) and thionyl chloride (SOCl2). Phosphorous trichloride and thionylchoride are also the main precursors for the production of mustard (HD).

Iraq also had the capability to produce, at least at laboratory scale, sodium sulphide (Na2S) and thiodiglycol (both for sulphur mustard agent production), methyl benzilate (for BZ production), triethanol amine (for nitrogen-mustard agent production) and potassium bifluoride and ammonium bifluoride (for GB/GF production). In addition, Iraq had the capability to produce the VX precursors choline, methyl thiophosphonyl dichloride (MPS) at the least at pilot-plant scale.

Iraqs Chemical Weapons

Of special interest here is the tables midway down the page where UNSCOM repeatedly says time after time "can not be verified", can not be established"
when refering both to chemical stocks, precursor chemicals and munitions
UNSCOM and Iraqi Chemical Weapons

Nobody but nobody covers their detergent nor their precursor chemicals with
CAMO, nor do they store these chemicals next to a very large ammo depot unless they have a real good reason.

As far as the issue of satellite surveillence is concerned, all it told us was that just prior to the outbreak of hostilities there was an unusual amount of truck convoys going into Syria and not returning. Only human intell on the ground would have told us what was in those trucks, we can not prove 100% that they indeed carried Saddams WMD away, but the thwarted attack on Jordan sure points heavily in that direction. On the otherhand no one can say with 100% accuracy that this is not what happened to the WMD, I guess the only way we're going to find out is when we wake up to that nightmare news report saying 20,000 are dead - hell of a way to find out in my opinion.

Instead of a politically driven agenda designed to deny the existence and whereabouts of Iraqi WMD, people should be striving to turn over the ends of the earth to find out once and for all where they are before they find us.

Phoenix:

Instead of a politically driven agenda designed to deny the existence and whereabouts of Iraqi WMD, people should be striving to turn over the ends of the earth to find out once and for all where they are before they find us.

You accuse me of having a political agenda to do with WMDs and yet you're the one who says we should "striving to turn over the ends of the earth to find them".

It's because you BELIEVE your lying government, and you BELIEVE the claims of those who HAVE agendas (Chalabi for instance) and you BELIEVE that there are WMDs when in fact there is no concrete evidence they CURRENTLY exist.

But yet you've been lied to again and again and you still keep eating it up.

I believe someone untill they give me reason not to. When I am lied to, I don't eblieve that person again. Like the Bush Adminstration.

Here's some of the good whoppers:

On October 7, 2002, Bush said, "Iraq has trained al Qaida in bomb making, poisons, and deadly gas."

June 1, 2001: "Yes, we found a biological laboratory in Iraq, which the U.N. prohibited."

January 28, 2003: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought uranium from Africa."

(even though the CIA had long since debunked it as not solid)

On Sept. 7, 2002 meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at Camp David, Bush told reporters: "I would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were denied, finally denied access, a report came out of the Atomic -- the IAEA -- that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I don't know what more evidence we need."

The IAEA never made such a report.


But I guess you're more forgiving than I am. Maybe it takes 50 more lies for you to start doubting their honesty.

It seems like common sense to me to say:

This war was waged under the US Adminstration's claims that Iraq was a "clear and imminent danger" to the US and to the world. Over 12 months later, nothing has been found that could have caused any harm to the United States mainland. The United Nations didn't vote for this war because they were skeptical about the pre-war evidence (mobile labs, UAVs, 50,000 tons of Vx, etc) of which NONE has been found.

So you keep saying your "Well they gotta be there". Because they don't have to be there if we were lied to.

Because we WERE lied to.

By invading Iraq, the Bush Adminstration has made the lives of Americans around the world more dangerous. Ask Nick Berg.


jako




[Edited on 24-5-2004 by Jakomo]

[Edited on 24-5-2004 by Jakomo]