Wednesday, March 1, 2006

WMD did exist in Iraq and are now in Syria and beyond

New tapes reveal the obvious - so why the media silence ?

by Ferdinand III

The nexus of opposition to the Iraq War, which was never really strong to begin with morally, geopolitically or intellectually, has taken a battering as reality unfolds. The ‘Bush lied, thousands died’ line is looking the weariest. Looks like Bush never lied and thousands have died but hundreds of thousands and indeed millions have been saved. WMD did exist in Hussein’s Iraq before the March 2003 invasion. It still does exist in Iraq, Syria, and beyond. Not only do intelligence sources, largely scorned and ridiculed by the left wing media, which has been a media phenomenon since the Cold War, confirm this, but now we have tapes recording Hussein’s claims and that of other Iraqi’s that they possessed and could easily move WMD to avoid either inspections or by default an invasion. The Iraqi’s in the 1990s were expert in moving WMD to avoid UN inspectors and satellite photos publicly available show Iraqi convoys moving into Syria from January to March of 2003. These convoys were carrying it is to be assumed not chocolates, flowers or birthday cards, but most likely, sensitive papers, frightened men, and weapons of various flavors. So now we have new tapes which further support what everyone knows to be true – that Iraq had and does have WMD – and yet curious George Bush, the media and so-called pundits are mute. Why?

Inconveniently for critics of the war, Saddam-made tapes are now becoming public. These tapes landed in the hands of American intelligence and were recently parsed and translated. There is some pristine and media inspiring information in the 12 hours of recorded discussions from Hussein's cabinet meetings between 1992 and 2000 about concealing Iraq's WMD weapons programs from U.N. inspectors and US detection. In the tapes, which were revealed and translated by former U.N. weapons inspector Bill Tierney, Hussein discusses the possibility of targeting the United States directly with WMD and even nuclear weapons. In addition, the tapes revealed that Iraq had a uranium enrichment plan, "using a technique known as plasma separation", in 2000 and that the U.N. weapons inspectors knew nothing about it. Some of these tapes were aired by ABC News' "Nightline," on Feb. 15, 2006, yet have received scant attention elsewhere.

Oddly enough opposition to the new information exists not only in the media as one would expect since the media is foursquare liberal and anti-American and anti-Bush, but also within the intelligence agencies. These new tapes will force the intelligence community to admit that they misled Bush to state that Iraq had no WMD. Such an admission is something the intelligence community wants to avoid by attempting to discredit the tapes and their authenticity. They are also eager to close down any debate about the sources of the tapes or about WMD in general and Iraq. The first 12 hours of the tapes — there are hundreds more waiting to be translated — are quite clear and incendiary. They show conclusively that Bush didn't lie when he cited Saddam's WMD plans as one of the big reasons for taking the dictator out. In fact Bush probably understated his case. That the intelligence community has been ‘upstaged’ by these tapes and can’t with their hundreds of thousands of workers, and billions of dollars in funding, track, locate and identify the WMD, would suggest why they are not keen on having them revealed to the greater public.

War foes have long asserted that Saddam halted his WMD programs in the wake of his defeat in the first Gulf War in 1991. Saddam's abandonment of WMD programs was confirmed by subsequent U.N. inspections. However, as any serious student of the situation knows this is not true. In a tape dating to April 1995, Saddam and several aides discuss the fact that U.N. inspectors had found traces of Iraq's biological weapons program. On the tape, Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law, is heard gloating about fooling the inspectors. ‘We did not reveal all that we have," he says. ‘Not the type of weapons, not the volume of the materials we imported, not the volume of the production we told them about, not the volume of use. None of this was correct.’

As late as 2000, Saddam can be heard in his office talking with Iraqi scientists about his ongoing plans to build a nuclear device. At one point, he discusses Iraq's plasma uranium program — something that was missed entirely by U.N. weapons inspectors combing Iraq for WMD. This is particularly troubling, since it indicates an active, ongoing attempt by Saddam to build an Iraqi nuclear bomb. Perhaps most chillingly, the tapes record Iraq Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz talking about how easy it would be to set off a WMD in Washington. The comments come shortly after Saddam muses about using "proxies" in a terror attack.

And now we have the story told by Georges Sada, the former No. 2 in Iraq's air force. He has written a book, "Saddam's Secrets," that details how the Iraqi dictator used trucks, commercial jets and ships to remove his WMD from the country. At the time, the move went largely undetected, because Iraq pretended the massive movement of materiel was to help Syrian flood victims. Nor is Sada alone. Ali Ibrahim, another of Saddam's former commanders, has largely corroborated Sada's story. So how was Saddam able to use his ‘cheat and retreat’ tactics without being found out? He had help, according to a former U.S. Defense Department official.

‘The short answer to the question of where the WMD Saddam bought from the Russians went was that they went to Syria and Lebanon,’ states John Shaw, a former deputy undersecretary of defense. ‘They were moved by Russian Spetsnaz (special ops) units out of uniform that were specifically sent to Iraq to move the weaponry and eradicate any evidence of its existence,’ he said. These are extraordinary developments. They deserve a full airing in the media, since they essentially validate part of Bush's casus belli for invading Iraq and deposing the murderous Saddam.

During the first 3 months of 2003 convoys of trucks carried various materiel and men across into Syria as well. The Russians and French ‘observers’ barely got out before the American tanks rumbled into downtown Baghdad. Now we hear from pious media analysts that France and Russia are ‘allies’ in the war on terror. Really? These same two nations that made billions from Hussein’s fascist immoral regime and now from trade with Iran? These same two nations that will use ‘diplomacy’ to milk their Iranian investments whilst the Iranians build a nuclear capability? The same capability through technology transfers, materials and ‘observer’ support they wanted for Iraq under Hussein. France and Russia are self interested cheats who care not a whittle if 3 million Jews in Tel Aviv are incinerated by a nuclear blast, or if billions in illegal monies are stolen from dying Iraqis or if more Americans die in fascist Islam's assault on civilisation.

The true story of the culpability and deceit of the French, Russian, German, and Chinese governments in collusion with Hussein’s Iraq and now with Iran’s fascist mullah’s is slowly coming to light. Pity that the media does not care. Unbalanced and unhinged one could say.

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See as well: http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48647