6/29/2005
9-11/Iraq Linkage? Sure. Next Question.
To hear all the groans from the left today about Bush’s sin of “linking 9-11 to Iraq,” you would think that they had something new with which to skewer President Bush in the wake of his outstanding and moving speech last night. In reply to the condemnations of self-important yet forgetful liberal elitists, I offer them this 29 June 2005 article by Andrew McCarthy, published at National Review Online. This piece outlines clearly not only why we are in Iraq fighting this war, but also the history of Iraq/al Qaeda connections running back several years.
McCarthy’s list of connections, many of which were culled from intelligence reports during the Clinton administration, is presented as questions for the “no linkage whatsoever” folks to ponder. He asks: “What does the “nothing whatsoever” crowd have to say about…”
Ahmed Hikmat Shakir — the Iraqi Intelligence operative who facilitated a 9/11 hijacker into Malaysia and was in attendance at the Kuala Lampur meeting with two of the hijackers, and other conspirators, at what is roundly acknowledged to be the initial 9/11 planning session in January 2000? Who was arrested after the 9/11 attacks in possession of contact information for several known terrorists? Who managed to make his way out of Jordanian custody over our objections after the 9/11 attacks because of special pleading by Saddam’s regime?
Saddam’s intelligence agency’s efforts to recruit jihadists to bomb Radio Free Europe in Prague in the late 1990’s?
Mohammed Atta’s unexplained visits to Prague in 2000, and his alleged visit there in April 2001 which — notwithstanding the 9/11 Commission’s dismissal of it (based on interviewing exactly zero relevant witnesses) — the Czechs have not retracted?
The Clinton Justice Department’s allegation in a 1998 indictment (two months before the embassy bombings) against bin Laden, to wit: In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.
Seized Iraq Intelligence Service records indicating that Saddam’s henchmen regarded bin Laden as an asset as early as 1992?
Saddam’s hosting of al Qaeda No. 2, Ayman Zawahiri beginning in the early 1990’s, and reports of a large payment of money to Zawahiri in 1998?
Saddam’s ten years of harboring of 1993 World Trade Center bomber Abdul Rahman Yasin?
Iraqi Intelligence Service operatives being dispatched to meet with bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998 (the year of bin Laden’s fatwa demanding the killing of all Americans, as well as the embassy bombings)?
Saddam’s official press lionizing bin Laden as “an Arab and Islamic hero” following the 1998 embassy bombing attacks?
The continued insistence of high-ranking Clinton administration officials to the 9/11 Commission that the 1998 retaliatory strikes (after the embassy bombings) against a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory were justified because the factory was a chemical weapons hub tied to Iraq and bin Laden?
Top Clinton administration counterterrorism official Richard Clarke’s assertions, based on intelligence reports in 1999, that Saddam had offered bin Laden asylum after the embassy bombings, and Clarke’s memo to then-National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, advising him not to fly U-2 missions against bin Laden in Afghanistan because he might be tipped off by Pakistani Intelligence, and “[a]rmed with that knowledge, old wily Usama will likely boogie to Baghdad”? (See 9/11 Commission Final Report, p. 134 & n.135.)
Terror master Abu Musab Zarqawi’s choice to boogie to Baghdad of all places when he needed surgery after fighting American forces in Afghanistan in 2001?
Saddam’s Intelligence Service running a training camp at Salman Pak, were terrorists were instructed in tactics for assassination, kidnapping and hijacking?
Former CIA Director George Tenet’s October 7, 2002 letter to Congress, which asserted:
Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank.
We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda going back a decade.
Credible information indicates that Iraq and Al Qaeda have discussed safe haven and reciprocal nonaggression.
Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of Al Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad.
We have credible reporting that Al Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to Al Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs.
Iraq’s increasing support to extremist Palestinians coupled with growing indications of relationship with Al Qaeda suggest that Baghdad’s links to terrorists will increase, even absent U.S. military action.
There’s more. Stephen Hayes’s book, The Connection, remains required reading. But these are just the questions; the answers — if someone will just investigate the questions rather than pretending there’s “nothing whatsoever” there — will provide more still.
Rush Limbaugh also delineated these and more connections between al Qaeda and the 9-11 attacks in his The Limbaugh Letter of 13 July 2004. He made it available as two separate PDF files on his website today. He also included a link to additional content on Saddam Hussein.
So, the next time a wacko antiwar moonbat chides you for being a warmonger and supporting President Bush’s empty War on Terrorism — about which we are fighting an unnecessary battle in Iraq — just politely remind them of some of the data above. If some of those moonbats just happen to also be United States Senators or Congressional Representatives, then all the better. Of course, it is entirely likely that eyes will roll, but-monkeys will ensue, and the pretending will prevail.
Originally posted at TMH’s Bacon Bits.
TMH’s Bacon Bits linked with 9-11/Iraq Linkage? Sure. Next Question.
June 29th, 2005 at 3:16 pm
[…] eyes will roll, but-monkeys will ensue, and the pretending will prevail. Cross-posted at Cao’s Blog This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 29th, 2005 at […]
June 29th, 2005 at 6:53 pm
The link between 9/11 and Iraq is Islam, which promotes the worldwide caliphate. Al-Qaeda and Saddam had the same goal–never mind that had one succeeeded, the other would have fought against a fellow Muslim. The history of Islam is rife with tribal warfare.
Muslim proverb: “It’s me and my brother against my cousin. And when we’ve finished him off, it’s me and my brother against each other.”
And, for the record, had it not been for the First Gulf War, we might well have seen bioweapons or nukes unleashed here in the United States. At least, so says Mahdi Obeidi, author of “The Bomb In My Garden.” Dr. Obeidi should know–he was the head of Saddam’s nuclear-development program. We are indeed fortunate that, as soon as Baghdad fell, Dr. Obeidi turned over what he had to the coalition forces.
Raphael Patai’s book “The Arab Mind,” published in the 1970’s I believe, provides lots of cultural and historical insights and is definitely not anti-Muslim; but it IS objective. The book is available in paperback, and I just purchased my own copy from Amazon.
June 29th, 2005 at 9:02 pm
Islam is a very dangerous brainwashing religion that teaches followers to kill for God. The goal of Islam is to take over the world and enslave everyone under it or else they be killed. The fight has been going on for thousands of years and we must stay on the offensive as president said.
Keep up the great work, and I appreciate your stopping by my site and commenting!
June 30th, 2005 at 9:12 pm
Wow! Get this info to President W. right away. Back on September 17, 2004, President Bush said:
“We’ve had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11 [attacks].”
And the 9/11 Commission was privy to all the U.S. intel with the benefit of hindsight. They found that al Qaeda actually fought Saddam and couldn’t find anything in intel records that showed Saddam and al Qaeda ever teamed up:
“Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States.”
June 30th, 2005 at 10:02 pm
I posted excerpts from McCarthy’s article on my blog along with my usual acerbic comments. Bottom line is that the leftists do not want answers to those questions posed in the article.
I also found an interesting piece at OpinionJournal on what counsel the dem/leftists have provided on the Iraq War. you can see that here.
July 1st, 2005 at 4:03 am
Get a grip, Randy. Husseinandterror.com I can only assume he had this information. You think the president is the last to know? You really have absolutely no idea what’s going on, do you?
He also said this:
DUH! And if you recall, Bin Laden admitted that he planned 9/11. As a matter of fact, Mogadishu is what made him realize the US is a “paper tiger”.
And Bush also said this:
Interestingly, even today, Al Qaeda is in Iraq. They are the foreign fighters working for Zarqawi. Zarqawi was named Bin Laden’s “emir” and it is still Al Qaeda we’re fighting, just as Al Qaeda attacked the towers that day in September 2001.
There was an Iraq connection wotj the OK City bombing that we did nothing about, I just thank God we had the balls to do something about Hussein and Al Qaeda–giving up and surrendering is not the answer.
Sabah Khodada, is a former Iraqi army captain who once worked at Salman Pak. On October 14, 2001, Khodada granted an interview with the PBS television program “Frontline,” stating, “This camp is specialized in exporting terrorism to the whole world.”He added: “Training includes hijacking and kidnapping of airplanes, trains, public buses, and planting explosives in cities … how to prepare for suicidal operations.”
He continued: “We saw people getting trained to hijack airplanes…They are even trained how to use utensils for food, like forks and knives provided in the plane.”
Does that sound familiar?
1. “Saddam Hussein’s Philanthropy of Terror.” The Hudson Institute: American Outlook, Fall 2003, pages 46 – 52.
2. “Dems, Then & Now: Iraq terror-tie facts changed with the campaign season for Kerry and Co.” National Review Online (NRO), October 7, 2004.
3. “There Is a C-O-N-N-E-C-T-I-O-N,” NRO, July 21, 2004.
4. “Baathist Fingerprints,” NRO, June 3, 2004.
5. “Clarke’s Not Blind,” NRO, March 26, 2004.
6. “Graves of Mass Evidence,” NRO, March 19, 2004.
7. “The Road to Hell Is Paved with Acts of Terror,” NRO, March 10, 2004
8. “On the Interrogation List: How did Saddam help 9/11 happen?” NRO, December 15, 2003.
9. “Saddam’s Terror Ties: Iraq-war critics ignore ample evidence,” NRO, October 21, 2003.
10. “WMD & More: Remember what we have found in Iraq,” NRO, June 17, 2003
11. “Another Terror Tie: The evidence against Saddam Hussein continues to stack up,” NRO, April 16, 2003.
12. “At Salman Pak: Iraq’s terror ties,” NRO, April 7, 2003.
13. “The 9/11 Connection: What Salman Pak could reveal,” NRO, April 3, 2003.
14. “Disarmament Not Good Enough: Getting rid of Saddam,” NRO, March 17, 2003.
15. “Iraq’s Capability: Let’s not wait for a mushroom cloud,” NRO, September 24, 2002.
July 2nd, 2005 at 5:15 pm
Just 2 comments.
1.”Interestingly, even today, Al Qaeda is in Iraq. ” Well, invading them did a whole lot of good then, did it?
2. Where are the WMDs?
July 2nd, 2005 at 5:58 pm
Hey lefty, has there been another 9/11?
Looks like the idea of bringing the fight to THEM worked.
nice try
WMD? We found a lot of them (and we know there’s some buried in the Bekaa Valley-Saddam paid the Syrians over $30 million for them to put it there), but what you’re saying is we didn’t find missiles with their lights ominously blinking and a sign on them that says “destination: The Great Satan America!”
hahahaha heard it all before. Why don’t you guys try a new meme? It’s like the same person is coming over here repeating the same tired sorry ********.
July 2nd, 2005 at 8:00 pm
“Hey lefty, has there been another 9/11?” No, but the cause of this was our invasion of Afghanistan (which I support), not our invasion of Iraq (which I didn’t support). To say that invading Iraq is like if I had a toaster fire, so I removed the toaster and refridgerator from my house and then said that removing the refridgerator resulted in fewer toaster fires.
And can you please, PLEASE, PLEASE post a link to the news story where it says we found nuclear material (doesn’t even have to be fully assembled missles, just the most destructive part: weapons grade (or even not-that-good) plutonium or uranium) in Iraq?
July 2nd, 2005 at 8:11 pm
Find it yourself, smarty pants. So now you’re saying it has to be nukes, heh? Well they already have soviet 60’s suitcase-style nukes right here in the US. If one of them blows, it will have that signature. The truckloads of stuff made it out of Iraq (there are satellite images of them moving it and sanitizing the area) and they’re in the terrorists’ hands, thanks in part to Saddam Hussein. I really don’t care if you don’t support the war in Iraq, it’s just too bad that you don’t realize the magnitude of what we’re facing. Iraq is better for it, the world is safer, and the Iraqi people are grateful.
Why limit it to nuclear weapons? He had a biological program, and two of the scientists are in custody, but let’s just ignore that part of it, because it doesn’t fit into your preconceived notion that it has to fit within very narrow parameters in order for it to apply.
- Salmon Pak, a site known to house a training facility for Iraqis, Arabs, and Non-Arabs in the acts of sabotage and terrorism, was also a primary research facility for Biological weapons and associated technologies. This site was a research facility that developed Anthrax, Botulinum toxin, Clostridium, perfringens (gas gangrene), mycotoxins, aflatoxins, and Ricin. Salmon Pak was also the site of a major battle on 20 March 2005. It was also the site of a massacre during the Invasion phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Among the identified dead was an Iraqi Intelligence Officer. On a side note, a US court found that expert testimony and evidence related to this site was sufficient enough to award $104 million dollars in damages to the families of two 9/11 victims.
Educate yourself, and pull your head out of your ***, to start with, and maybe you can actually hear what’s being said. All the documentation I provide is ignored and you point to something else. It’s useless, as is your argument.
We’re talking about our very survival here and you’re talking…
What are you, an appliance repairman?
bwahahaha!
July 2nd, 2005 at 8:18 pm
Hey lefty, has there been another 9/11?
Looks like the idea of bringing the fight to THEM worked.
The first al-Qaida attack on the WTC was in 1993. It took them 8 years to enact another. Are you so arrogant as to believe that 4 years on we are terrorist free and safe here in the US?
We have no idea when or where a terrorist act may occur, and we have done little to protect our borders and infrastructure here in the US.
We’ve been too busy spending our tax dollars in Iraq for Halliburton.
July 2nd, 2005 at 8:23 pm
Oh c’mon. Halliburton? Ok now where’s the “no blood for oil” meme? C’mon, don’t leave any of those stupid lefty memes out! Arrogant? What’s arrogant (or is it pathetic?) is you people coming over here repeating the same things like a bunch of mental patients, ignoring the answers you get. Well it’s a fact, isn’t it, we haven’t had another 9/11, have we? And you have no answer for that except that I’m arrogant?
whatever.
Oh, and do you think the situation would be better or worse if we just surrendered or gave up? Do you think our quitting is going to encourage them or stop them? (do you remember or are you old enough to remember how soon the communists overtook South Vietnam after we left and how many millions died afterwards?) Islamofascists have been at this a very long time, it doesn’t seem to matter what tactics we use–except I know for damned sure I don’t want to be wiped off the face of this earth without a fight. You’re willing to just give up, heh? Try diplomacy? Is that it? Think it’ll work?
Would you agree they need to be stopped? Do you think hammering on that Halliburton meme when Cheney doesn’t receive any money from his stock in Halliburton means anything at this point? Did you know that he gave up his stock dividends to charity? A guy at that level gets a stock option, it’s part of his package. I mean it makes sense to people who can put two coherent thoughts together, but that wouldn’t be you, would it?
The MaryHunter, who penned this post is on vacation and I’m sorry but I’m going to stop responding to you because these are all tired memes that have been answered elsewhere.
Pathetic trolls. Don’t you have something better to do with your time than to keep bleating the same old senseless ****? Can’t you even invent something new that hasn’t been fed to you by moveon.org, the Kerry campaign or Michael Moore? bwahahaha!~
July 2nd, 2005 at 11:21 pm
Halliburton?
Apparently, many (if not all) of the idiot “Trolleys from the Left” have never worked there; much less worked in and around the Oil & Gas field.
Yatahey worked in those fields for over 30 years and can smell ******** a mile off from ignorant Lefties…
July 3rd, 2005 at 12:42 pm
“Find it yourself, smarty pants.”
Well, don’t act like I should have done your research for you. Anyway, here are 2 quotes from the article:
1.”U.S. officials emphasized this was not evidence Iraq had a nuclear weapon — but it was evidence the Iraqis concealed plans to reconstitute their nuclear program as soon as the world was no longer looking. ”
Has the world EVER been not-looking at Iraq since the Gulf War?
2.”U.S. officials, including President Bush, also had cited British intelligence documents indicating Iraq may have tried to buy 500 tons of uranium from Niger, but the IAEA said the documents were obvious fakes.”
“So now you’re saying it has to be nukes, heh?”
The article you linked to was a “maybe”. Presumably the maybe-plutonium was not plutonium, or you would have been able to find a follow-up article more recently published than April 11, 2003.
“Well they already have soviet 60’s suitcase-style nukes right here in the US.” (Ignoring that you did not cite a source for this piece of info)
Then what are we invading Iraq for?!?! The nukes are HERE, and one of them could blow up the Empire State Building or the Sears Tower something at any time, and it won’t matter AT ALL where the hell our army is.
“If one of them blows, it will have that signature.”
Nukes have signatures that let you tell where it was made? Please educate me on this.
“The truckloads of stuff made it out of Iraq (there are satellite images of them moving it and sanitizing the area)”
Where are these pictures? I would think at least fox news would report something like that. Also, why is Bush not talking about invading the country(s) to where the WMDs have been evacuated? (You would think that if we could tell that there were WMDs and that they were being taken out of an area we could also tell the destination (or at least general direction) of them).
“and the Iraqi people are grateful.” Which explains why so many of our soldiers are being killed.
“Why limit it to nuclear weapons? He had a biological program, and two of the scientists are in custody, but let’s just ignore that part of it, because it doesn’t fit into your preconceived notion that it has to fit within very narrow parameters in order for it to apply.
- Salmon Pak, a site known to house a training facility for Iraqis, Arabs, and Non-Arabs in the acts of sabotage and terrorism, was also a primary research facility for Biological weapons and associated technologies. This site was a research facility that developed Anthrax, Botulinum toxin, Clostridium, perfringens (gas gangrene), mycotoxins, aflatoxins, and Ricin. Salmon Pak was also the site of a major battle on 20 March 2005. It was also the site of a massacre during the Invasion phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Among the identified dead was an Iraqi Intelligence Officer. On a side note, a US court found that expert testimony and evidence related to this site was sufficient enough to award $104 million dollars in damages to the families of two 9/11 victims.
Educate yourself, and pull your head out of your ***, to start with, and maybe you can actually hear what’s being said.”
(Ignoring your childish profanity) The source you have provided is unacceptable. Why? It itself does not cite its sources; although it makes use of a bibliography, it does not use citations, so I cannot tell which source gave the author which piece of information. The bibliography itself also has serious issues. Here is an excerpt from it
“http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15100518%255E1702,00.html
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/06/25/sprj.irq.centrifuge/
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/21536/story.htm
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,124881,00.html
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/15/sprj.irq.no.labs/
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,977853,00.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0B16F9385E0C728EDDAD0894DB404482
http://home.earthlink.net/~platter/articles/030421-miller.html”
Not very helpful, as there are few, if any, clues to what the linked-to sources are about, and I have no intention of spending a few weeks going to website after website just to find out if someone’s claims that I disagree with are substantiated. If I were a high school teacher and he turned in that paper, I would give him an F for lack of citations and such a terrible bibliography. The author says that the bibliography’s formatting (or lack thereof) is to prove some sort of point about how greedy the mass media is (which seems to me to be an attack on capitalism, ironic since he is defending Bush), but I suspect his true motives are laziness and/or a desire to conceal the fact that he has fabricated or misrepresented information.
July 3rd, 2005 at 12:56 pm
“Find it yourself, smarty pants.”
Well, don’t act like I should have done your research for you. Anyway, here are 2 quotes from the article:
1.”U.S. officials emphasized this was not evidence Iraq had a nuclear weapon — but it was evidence the Iraqis concealed plans to
reconstitute their nuclear program as soon as the world was no longer looking. ”
Has the world EVER been not-looking at Iraq since the Gulf War?
2.”U.S. officials, including President Bush, also had cited British intelligence documents indicating Iraq may have tried to buy 500 tons of uranium from Niger, but the IAEA said the documents were obvious fakes.”
“So now you’re saying it has to be nukes, heh?”
The article you linked to was a “maybe”.
Presumably the maybe-plutonium was not
plutonium, or you would have been able to find a follow-up article more recently published than
April 11, 2003.
“Well they already have soviet 60’s suitcase-style nukes right here in the US.” (Ignoring that you did not cite a source for this piece of info)
Then what are we invading Iraq for?!?! The nukes are HERE, and one of them could blow up the Empire State Building or the Sears Tower something at any time, and it won’t matter AT ALL where the hell our army is.
“If one of them blows, it will have that signature.”
Nukes have signatures that let you tell where it was made? Please educate me on this.
“The truckloads of stuff made it out of Iraq (there are satellite images of them moving it and sanitizing the area)”
Where are these pictures? I would think at least fox news would report something like that.
Also, why is Bush not talking about invading the country(s) to where the WMDs have been
evacuated? (You would think that if we could tell that there were WMDs and that they were being taken out of an area we could also tell the destination (or at least general direction)
of them).
“and the Iraqi people are grateful.” Which explains why so many of our soldiers are being
killed.
“Why limit it to nuclear weapons? He had a biological program, and two of the scientists are in custody, but let’s just ignore that part of it, because it doesn’t fit into your
preconceived notion that it has to fit within very narrow parameters in order for it to apply.
- Salmon Pak, a site known to house a training facility for Iraqis, Arabs, and Non-Arabs in the acts of sabotage and terrorism, was also a primary research facility for Biological weapons and associated technologies. This site was a research facility that developed Anthrax, Botulinum toxin, Clostridium, perfringens (gas gangrene), mycotoxins, aflatoxins, and Ricin. Salmon Pak was also the site of a major battle on 20 March 2005. It was also the site of a massacre during the Invasion phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Among the identified dead was an Iraqi Intelligence Officer. On a side note, a US court found that expert testimony and evidence related to this site was sufficient enough to award $104 million dollars in damages to the families of two 9/11 victims.
Educate yourself, and pull your head out of your ***, to start with, and maybe you can actually hear what’s being said.”
(Ignoring your childish profanity) The source you have provided is unacceptable. Why? It itself does not cite its sources; although it makes use of a bibliography, it does not use citations, so I cannot tell which source gave the author which piece of information. The bibliography itself also has serious issues.
Here is an excerpt from it
“http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15100518%255E1702,00.html
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/06/25/sprj.irq.centrifuge/
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/21536/story.htm
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,124881,00.html
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/15/sprj.irq.no.labs/
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,977853,00.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0B16F9385E0C728EDDAD0894DB404482
http://home.earthlink.net/~platter/articles/030421-miller.html”
Not very helpful, as there are few, if any, clues to what the linked-to sources are about, and I have no intention of spending a few weeks going to website after website just to find out if someone’s claims that I disagree with are substantiated. If I were a high school teacher and he turned in that paper, I would give him an F for lack of citations and such a terrible bibliography. The author says that the bibliography’s formatting (or lack thereof) is to prove some sort of point about how greedy the mass media is (which seems to me to be an attack on capitalism, ironic since he is defending Bush), but I suspect his true motives are laziness and/or a desire to conceal the fact that he has fabricated or misrepresented
information.
July 3rd, 2005 at 12:58 pm
“Find it yourself, smarty pants.”
Well, don’t act like I should have done your research for you. Anyway, here are 2 quotes from the article:
1.”U.S. officials emphasized this was not evidence Iraq had a nuclear weapon — but it was evidence the Iraqis concealed plans to reconstitute their nuclear program as soon as the world was no longer looking. ”
Has the world EVER been not-looking at Iraq since the Gulf War?
2.”U.S. officials, including President Bush, also had cited British intelligence documents indicating Iraq may have tried to buy 500 tons of uranium from Niger, but the IAEA said the documents were obvious fakes.”
“So now you’re saying it has to be nukes, heh?”
The article you linked to was a “maybe”. Presumably the maybe-plutonium was not plutonium, or you would have been able to find a follow-up article more recently published than April 11, 2003.
“Well they already have soviet 60’s suitcase-style nukes right here in the US.” (Ignoring that you did not cite a source for this piece of info)
Then what are we invading Iraq for?!?! The nukes are HERE, and one of them could blow up the Empire State Building or the Sears Tower something at any time, and it won’t matter AT ALL where the hell our army is.
“If one of them blows, it will have that signature.”
Nukes have signatures that let you tell where it was made? Please educate me on this.
“The truckloads of stuff made it out of Iraq (there are satellite images of them moving it and sanitizing the area)”
Where are these pictures? I would think at least fox news would report something like that. Also, why is Bush not talking about invading the country(s) to where the WMDs have been evacuated? (You would think that if we could tell that there were WMDs and that they were being taken out of an area we could also tell the destination (or at least general direction) of them).
“and the Iraqi people are grateful.” Which explains why so many of our soldiers are being killed.
“Why limit it to nuclear weapons? He had a biological program, and two of the scientists are in custody, but let’s just ignore that part of it, because it doesn’t fit into your preconceived notion that it has to fit within very narrow parameters in order for it to apply.
- Salmon Pak, a site known to house a training facility for Iraqis, Arabs, and Non-Arabs in the acts of sabotage and terrorism, was also a primary research facility for Biological weapons and associated technologies. This site was a research facility that developed Anthrax, Botulinum toxin, Clostridium, perfringens (gas gangrene), mycotoxins, aflatoxins, and Ricin. Salmon Pak was also the site of a major battle on 20 March 2005. It was also the site of a massacre during the Invasion phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Among the identified dead was an Iraqi Intelligence Officer. On a side note, a US court found that expert testimony and evidence related to this site was sufficient enough to award $104 million dollars in damages to the families of two 9/11 victims.
Educate yourself, and pull your head out of your ***, to start with, and maybe you can actually hear what’s being said.”
(Ignoring your childish profanity) The source you have provided is unacceptable. Why? It itself does not cite its sources; although it makes use of a bibliography, it does not use citations, so I cannot tell which source gave the author which piece of information. The bibliography itself also has serious issues. Here is an excerpt from it
“http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15100518%255E1702,00.html
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/06/25/sprj.irq.centrifuge/
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/21536/story.htm
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,124881,00.html
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/15/sprj.irq.no.labs/
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,977853,00.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0B16F9385E0C728EDDAD0894DB404482
http://home.earthlink.net/~platter/articles/030421-miller.html”
Not very helpful, as there are few, if any, clues to what the linked-to sources are about, and I have no intention of spending a few weeks going to website after website just to find out if someone’s claims that I disagree with are substantiated. If I were a high school teacher and he turned in that paper, I would give him an F for lack of citations and such a terrible bibliography. The author says that the bibliography’s formatting (or lack thereof) is to prove some sort of point about how greedy the mass media is (which seems to me to be an attack on capitalism, ironic since he is defending Bush), but I suspect his true motives are laziness and/or a desire to conceal the fact that he has fabricated or misrepresented information.
July 3rd, 2005 at 1:05 pm
(Part 1)
“Find it yourself, smarty pants.”
Well, don’t act like I should have done your research for you. Anyway, here are 2 quotes from the article:
1.”U.S. officials emphasized this was not evidence Iraq had a nuclear weapon — but it was evidence the Iraqis concealed plans to reconstitute their nuclear program as soon as the world was no longer looking. ”
Has the world EVER been not-looking at Iraq since the Gulf War?
2.”U.S. officials, including President Bush, also had cited British intelligence documents indicating Iraq may have tried to buy 500 tons of uranium from Niger, but the IAEA said the documents were obvious fakes.”
“So now you’re saying it has to be nukes, heh?”
The article you linked to was a “maybe”. Presumably the maybe-plutonium was not plutonium, or you would have been able to find a follow-up article more recently published than April 11, 2003.
“Well they already have soviet 60’s suitcase-style nukes right here in the US.” (Ignoring that you did not cite a source for this piece of info)
Then what are we invading Iraq for?!?! The nukes are HERE, and one of them could blow up the Empire State Building or the Sears Tower something at any time, and it won’t matter AT ALL where the hell our army is.
“If one of them blows, it will have that signature.”
Nukes have signatures that let you tell where it was made? Please educate me on this.
July 3rd, 2005 at 1:07 pm
(Part 2)
“Why limit it to nuclear weapons? He had a biological program, and two of the scientists are in custody, but let’s just ignore that part of it, because it doesn’t fit into your preconceived notion that it has to fit within very narrow parameters in order for it to apply.
Educate yourself, and pull your head out of your ***, to start with, and maybe you can actually hear what’s being said.”
(Ignoring your childish profanity) The source you have provided is unacceptable. Why? It itself does not cite its sources; although it makes use of a bibliography, it does not use citations, so I cannot tell which source gave the author which piece of information. The bibliography itself also has serious issues. Here is an excerpt from it.
July 3rd, 2005 at 1:07 pm
(Part 3)
Here
Here
Here
Here
Here
Here
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0B16F9385E0C728EDDAD0894DB404482“>Here
Here
Not very helpful, as there are few, if any, clues to what the linked-to sources are about, and I have no intention of spending a few weeks going to website after website just to find out if someone’s claims that I disagree with are substantiated. If I were a high school teacher and he turned in that paper, I would give him an F for lack of citations and such a terrible bibliography. The author says that the bibliography’s formatting (or lack thereof) is to prove some sort of point about how greedy the mass media is (which seems to me to be an attack on capitalism, ironic since he is defending Bush), but I suspect his true motives are laziness and/or a desire to conceal the fact that he has fabricated or misrepresented information.
July 3rd, 2005 at 1:14 pm
The first Al Qaeda attack was on the WTC? Kathe, Kathe, Kathe. Click here. They’ve been attacking us since 1968. The muslim brotherhood, where Al Qaeda gets its roots, has been on the nazi side of things (against the United States during the days of Hitler), check your history.
Joe, hang it up, will you, please? Childish profanity? “***” is childish profanity? You haven’t seen profanity til you’ve seen people tell me to “**** off” (and other choice words) on my own website. I left them all intact because you people are so priceless.
Look, several of your long tirades have piled up in my “awaiting moderation” section because they have so many links in them. I don’t have time to address your rants right now.
It’s really no surprise that you don’t accept my sources, Joe. Until everything is clearly labelled and indexed for you, you’re not willing to consider it. Suffice it to say–my son is in Iraq right now and they’ve found truckloads of stuff. There is a thing called the buy-back program and the Iraqis are helping our guys find weapons that are buried, etc.. The fact that you want nukes and are ignoring the biological weapons part of it just indicates to me that your narrow thinking has limited you to the point of being unable to think rationally. Whatever the reason is, I don’t particularly care. Hopefully, when the MaryHunter gets back from vacation, he can answer some of your insidious and incessant whining and complaining. I just don’t have the time or the inclination at this point.
I gave you stuff but you’re complaining that it’s not spelled out clearly enough for you. Sorry, I’m not your elementary school teacher, and if I was, I’d be teaching you how to think for yourself rather than harrass people to give you the answers.
If you honestly think I’m going to read through all that **** you laid out there you’re seriously mistaken.
July 3rd, 2005 at 1:48 pm
Joe, Randy, Kathy… your memes are so tiring. WMD’s were only part of the reason to take out Saddam, review the President’s WHOLE speech. Read the congressional resolution supporting and authorizing the war and KNOW that it was a bi-partisan resolution that the vast majority of Democrats authored and voted for.
Memes such as yours serve a single purpose, to keep from having to talk about the war on terror on a rational basis. In the next few comments, I expect one of you guys to invoke Goodwin’s law. That’ll show me won’t it?
July 3rd, 2005 at 2:42 pm
Joe,
Would you mind starting a blog of your own so that you can post your rants in something other than someone else’s comment sections. You can trackback to Cao’s posts with your own mindless rants.. so much easier than posting these ridiculously long posts. Blogger is free. Try it out…
July 3rd, 2005 at 2:57 pm
“Joe, hang it up, will you, please? Childish profanity? “***” is childish profanity? You haven’t seen profanity til you’ve seen people tell me to “**** off” (and other choice words) on my own website. I left them all intact because you people are so priceless.”
So, why am I accountable for the profanity of others?
“Look, several of your long tirades have piled up in my “awaiting moderation” section because they have so many links in them.”
Only links quoted from sources you provided.
“I don’t have time to address your rants right now.”
Take your time. I’ll be ready when you’re done.
“It’s really no surprise that you don’t accept my sources, Joe. Until everything is clearly labelled and indexed for you, you’re not willing to consider it.”
So, I write a few paragraphs in my spare time, and it’s too much for you, but all of a sudden, it’s my fault for not wanted to look through 100 unlabelled links just to find out one paragraph of text? Hey, you want to convince me I’m wrong, right? Well, you aren’t trying very hard, so stop complaining I’m not doing your work for you.
“Suffice it to say–my son is in Iraq right now and they’ve found truckloads of stuff.”
Stuff being NBC weapons?
“There is a thing called the buy-back program and the Iraqis are helping our guys find weapons that are buried, etc.. The fact that you want nukes and are ignoring the biological weapons part of it just indicates to me that your narrow thinking has limited you to the point of being unable to think rationally.”
I’m sorry for omitting biological weapons earlier, but I’m not ignoring them now. Unfortunately (for you), you have not convinced me Iraq had biological weapons either.
“I gave you stuff but you’re complaining that it’s not spelled out clearly enough for you. Sorry, I’m not your elementary school teacher, and if I was, I’d be teaching you how to think for yourself rather than harrass people to give you the answers.”
I AM thinking for myself; you seem to be the one unable to back up any of his statements (like the suitcase nukes), and also unable to properly cite sources (otherwise you could just be fabricating things!). Although, now that I think about it, I could do a bit more thinking for myself, but I am chained to reality. Oh, foolish, foolish me, unable to accept anything but proven facts.
“If you honestly think I’m going to read through all that **** you laid out there you’re seriously mistaken.”
If you honestly think I’m going to try to make sense of the **** bibliography your source provided, you are even more seriously mistaken. At this point, you are almost like a child who thinks he has won an argument because he has covered his ears while shouting “Lalala, I can’t hear you!”
July 3rd, 2005 at 3:00 pm
Joe, Randy, Kathy… your memes are so tiring. WMD’s were only part of the reason to take out Saddam, review the President’s WHOLE speech. Read the congressional resolution supporting and authorizing the war and KNOW that it was a bi-partisan resolution that the vast majority of Democrats authored and voted for.
Sounds more to me like the word “meme” is a meme to avoid having to take anything we say seriously. Also, I don’t care how many democrats were for the bill; I’m against it. I am, after all, capable of independent thought.
Finally, if Bush had enough reason to invade Iraq besides WMDs, why did he even bring them up?
July 3rd, 2005 at 3:26 pm
Iraqi intelligence documents, confiscated by U.S. forces and obtained by CNSNews.com, show numerous efforts by Saddam Hussein’s regime to work with some of the world’s most notorious terror organizations, including al Qaeda, to target Americans. They demonstrate that Saddam’s government possessed mustard gas and anthrax, both considered weapons of mass destruction, in the summer of 2000, during the period in which United Nations weapons inspectors were not present in Iraq. And the papers show that Iraq trained dozens of terrorists inside its borders.
One of the Iraqi memos contains an order from Saddam for his intelligence service to support terrorist attacks against Americans in Somalia. The memo was written nine months before U.S. Army Rangers were ambushed in Mogadishu by forces loyal to a warlord with alleged ties to al Qaeda.
Other memos provide a list of terrorist groups with whom Iraq had relationships and considered available for terror operations against the United States.
Among the organizations mentioned are those affiliated with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Ayman al-Zawahiri, two of the world’s most wanted terrorists. Zarqawi is believed responsible for the kidnapping and beheading of several American civilians in Iraq and claimed responsibility for a series of deadly bombings in Iraq Sept. 30. Al-Zawahiri is the top lieutenant of al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, allegedly helped plan the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist strikes on the U.S., and is believed to be the voice on an audio tape broadcast by Al-Jazeera television Oct. 1, calling for attacks on U.S. and British interests everywhere.
What the president’s critics and the media widely have portrayed as the most dramatic failure of the U.S. case against Saddam has been the claimed failure to find “stockpiles” of chemical and biological weapons. But in a June 2003 Washington Post op-ed, former chief U.N. weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus called such criticism “a distortion and a trivialization of a major threat to international peace and security.”
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.”
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.
Until now, Bush’s critics say, no stockpiles of CW agents made with those precursors have been found. The snap conclusion they draw is that the administration “lied” to the American people to create a pretext for invading Iraq.
But what are “stockpiles” of CW agents supposed to look like? Was anyone seriously expecting Saddam to have left behind freshly painted warehouses packed with chemical munitions, all neatly laid out in serried rows, with labels written in English?
Or did they think that a captured Saddam would guide U.S. troops to smoking vats full of nerve gas in an abandoned factory?
Stockpiles found
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.
Douglas Hanson was a U.S. Army cavalry reconnaissance officer for 20 years, and a veteran of Gulf War I. He was an atomic demolitions munitions security officer and a nuclear, biological and chemical defense officer. As a civilian analyst in Iraq last summer, he worked for an operations intelligence unit of the CPA in Iraq, and later, with the newly formed Ministry of Science and Technology, which was responsible for finding new, nonlethal employment for Iraqi WMD scientists.
In an interview with Insight and in an article he wrote for the online magazine AmericanThinker.com, Hanson examines reports from U.S. combat units and public information confirming that many of Iraq’s CW stockpiles have indeed been found.
Until now, however, journalists have devoted scant attention to this evidence, in part because it contradicts the story line they have been putting forward since the U.S.-led inspections began after the war.
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.”
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.”
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.’”
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.”
One other thing, Joe. It seems you have a superiority complex that needs to be put into perspective here. You’re constantly picking on my sources saying that you find them unacceptable because you don’t agree with the content. Well guess what? I could give a rip. The fact is, you’re in complete and utter denial about the realities we’re facing in the war on terror, the proven connections between Saddam and Al Qaeda and 9/11, and really, as others have stated here, WMD was not the main focus of what Bush said, it’s the media that have been harping on that stupid mantra. Of course, by “WMD,” what liberals mean is: missiles pointed at Washington, D.C., with their “Ready to Fire” lights blinking ominously and their warhead payloads clearly marked “WMD! Next Stop, The Great Satan America!” bwahahaha!
whatever.
On June 9, 2004, Demetrius Perricos announced that before, during and after the war in Iraq, Saddam Hussein shipped weapons of mass destruction and medium-range ballistic missiles to countries in Europe and the Middle East. Entire factories were dismantled and shipped as scrap metal to Jordan, the Netherlands and Turkey, among others, at the rate of about 1,000 tons of metal a month. As an example of speed by which these facilities were dismantled, Perricos displayed two photographs of a ballistic missile site near Baghdad, one taken in May 2003 with an active facility, the other in February 2004 that showed it had simply disappeared.
What passed for scrap metal and has since been discovered as otherwise is amazing. Inspectors have found Iraqi SA-2 surface-to-air missiles in Rotterdam — complete with U.N. inspection tags — and 20 SA-2 engines in Jordan, along with components for solid-fuel for missiles. Short-range Al Samoud surface-to-surface missiles were shipped abroad by agents of the regime. That missing ballistic missile site contained missile components, a reactor vessel and fermenters — the latter used for the production of chemical and biological warheads.
“The problem for us is that we don’t know what may have passed through these yards and other yards elsewhere,” Ewen Buchanan, Perricos’s spokesman, said. “We can’t really assess the significance and don’t know the full extent of activity that could be going on there or with others of Iraq’s neighbors.”
Perricos isn’t an American shill defending the Bush administration, but rather the acting executive chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and his report was made to the Security Council. Yet his report didn’t seem to be of much interest to a media which has used the lack of significant discoveries to question the rationale for the war
The report neatly disarms arguments that Hussein’s WMD programs were non-existent after the first Gulf War.
I don’t see any room for ambiguity in the term “Iraqi WMD components.” Just because an item has uses besides manufacturing or dispersing WMDs, it does not follow that it can’t be established that the item was in fact used or intended to manufacture WMDs, or intended to disperse WMDs.
July 3rd, 2005 at 4:43 pm
Joe Steele, you are a coward. What’s wrong? Afdraid to leave an actual email link or link to your site? Or maybe you don’t have a site?
You are a “frenchman”…you have no spine, no guts, no heart and no brain.
July 3rd, 2005 at 5:12 pm
More on Perricos’ findings-released on June 3, 2005. Imagery analysts have identified 109 sites that have been emptied of equipment to varying degrees, up from 90 reported in March. Biological sites were less damaged than chemical and missile sites.
53 of the 98 vessels that could be used for a wide range of chemical reactions had disappeared. “Due to its characteristics, this equipment can be used for the production of both commercial chemicals and chemical warfare agents,” he said.
The report said 3,380 valves, 107 pumps, and more than 7.8 miles of pipes were known to have been located at the 39 chemical sites.
A third of the chemical items removed came from the Qaa Qaa industrial complex south of Baghdad which the report said “was among the sites possessing the highest number of dual-use production equipment,” whose fate is now unknown.” Significant quantities of missing material were also located at the Fallujah II and Fallujah III facilities north of the city, which was besieged last year.
Before the first Gulf War in 1991, those facilities played a major part in the production of precursors for Iraq’s chemical warfare program.
The percentages of missing biological equipment from 12 sites were much smaller - no higher than 10 percent.
The report said 37 of 405 fermenters ranging in size from 2 gallons to 1,250 gallons had been removed. Those could be used to produce pharmaceuticals and vaccines as well as biological warfare agents such as anthrax.
The largest percentages of missing items were at the 58 missile facilities, which include some of the key production sites for both solid and liquid propellant missiles, the report said.
For example, 289 of the 340 pieces of equipment to produce missiles - about 85 percent - had been removed, it said.
At the Kadhimiyah and Al Samoud factory sites in suburban Baghdad, where the report said airframes and engines for liquid propellant missiles were manufactured and final assembly was carried out, “all equipment and missile components have been removed.”
Any reasonable person could draw a the conclusion that Saddam moved this stuff–and more than just WMD to Syria. The story is continuing to unfold, but people like Joe who are in such incredible denial about it and aren’t willing to accept all the signs (apparently because he’s so picky about the source? I’m not sure.)
Maybe he should take a look at the UN report but even then he’ll probably have a problem with the conclusions drawn, or the time of day, or the color of the eyes of the person writing the report,
Finally, the U.N. admits what the rest of the world (minus the loony left) have known for AT LEAST a year. Prohibited missiles, equipment that would make a bio-terrorist’s heart leap, and yellow cake. Tons of yellowcake. (500 tons of uranium that the Iraqi dictator kept stored at his al Tuwaitha nuclear weapons development plant. But what do you expect, the press hasn’t made much of Saddam’s 500-ton uranium stockpile, downplaying the story to such an extent that most Americans aren’t even aware of it.) Jaffar Dhia Jaffar, admitted to the BBC earlier in 2004, “We had 500 tons of yellow cake [uranium] in Baghdad.” There was also 1.8 tons of uranium that Saddam had begun to enrich. The U.S. Energy Department considered that stockpile so dangerous that it mounted an unprecedented airlift operation in June or July of 2004 to remove the enriched uranium stash from al Tuwaitha. Kay’s successor, Charles Duelfer, also confirmed that they were conducting nuclear research at al Tuwaitha right up until the U.S. invasion, telling Congress in March that Saddam’s scientists were “preserving and expanding [their] knowledge to design and develop nuclear weapons.”
What’s significant about what Always on Watch says about the guy who wrote “The bomb in my garden” is this: After he was captured by U.S. forces in Baghdad in 2003, Dr. Mahdi Obeidi, who ran Saddam’s nuclear centrifuge program until 1997, had some disturbing news for coalition debriefers. He kept blueprints for a nuclear centrifuge, along with some actual centrifuge components, stored at his home - buried in the front yard - awaiting orders from Baghdad to proceed.
“I had to maintain the program to the bitter end,” Obeidi said recently. His only other choice was death.
In his new book, “The Bomb in My Garden,” the Iraqi physicist explains that his nuclear stash was the key that could have unlocked and restarted Saddam’s bombmaking program.
“The centrifuge is the single most dangerous piece of nuclear technology,” he writes. “With advances in centrifuge technology, it is now possible to conceal a uranium enrichment program inside a single warehouse.”
Dr. Obeidi warned in a New York Times op-ed piece that Saddam could have restarted his nuclear program “with a snap of his fingers.”
The 500 ton stockpile could have made 50 nuclear warheads, and it’s no secret that Saddam wanted to be the next Saladin.
One laboratory at al Tuwaitha, Duelfer said, “was intentionally focused on research applicable for nuclear weapons development.”
So…I guess none of this is significant because the sources aren’t good enough and the people who are saying it are people that Joe doesn’t agree with. Let’s see….In July of 2003 the Whitehouse gave this briefing, saying in part, that-the United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax, enough doses to kill several million people. (I guess that’s not a stockpile)–The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin. (hmm I guess that’s not a stockpile) Out intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agents. (I guess that’s nothing to worry about, either) U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. From three Iraqi defectors, we know that in Iraq in the late 1990s had several mobile biological weapons labs. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the ’90s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon, was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. We found quite a bit of the uranium, missiles, even aircraft (complete with footage of them being used like crop dusters -it’s how he gassed the kurds) and we know he got rid of his weapons plants, and many many, drums of “pesticides” were found in ammo dumps and disposed of.
Yeah right. “No WMD”.
July 3rd, 2005 at 6:14 pm
Joe Steele — let’s put it this way … SHUT THE HELL UP AND START YOUR OWN BLUBBERING BLOG — what part of that don’t you comprehend???
Kender was correct when he stated — “Afraid to leave an actual email link or link to your site? Or maybe you don’t have a site?
You are a “frenchman” … you have no spine,no guts, no heart and no brain.”
My dog has more of a thought process than you.
July 3rd, 2005 at 7:43 pm
Steele, not-so-brightly, said,”Finally, if Bush had enough reason to invade Iraq besides WMDs, why did he even bring them up?”
I read this and thought, I have a post I was going to do on just that topic. It’s called, “(D)s lie as heroes die”. the reason GWB mentioned WMDs is because that issue was made part of the Congressional resolution authorizing military action to enforce UN and American public law from the previous administration based on the facts Saddam claimed to have WMD, the fact Saddam had used WMDs on both the Iranians and the Kurds, and the fact his stated inventory of WMDs were not all accounted for, that’s why they are mentioned:
Ya better make sure your favorite liberal or (D) in Congress didn’t vote to affirm that fact when they voted to approve military action against Saddam.
Here is the text of what some of the Senate members of the (D) party affirmed with their votes:
Text of Joint Congressional Resolution on Iraq
“Whereas in Public Law 105-235 (August 14, 1998), Congress concluded that Iraq’s continuing weapons of mass destruction programs threatened vital United States interests and international peace and security, declared Iraq to be in ‘material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations’ and urged the President ‘to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations’;
Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations;
[…]
Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;
Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens…”
And just who voted to affirm this resolution?
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Breaux (D-LA)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carnahan (D-MO)
Carper (D-DE)
Cleland (D-GA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Daschle (D-SD)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Edwards (D-NC)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Hollings (D-SC)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kohl (D-WI)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lieberman (D-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Miller (D-GA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Schumer (D-NY)
Torricelli (D-NJ)
Yeah, Bush is the liar,…uh huh, sure, got it.
July 3rd, 2005 at 8:10 pm
Rusty Steele….it’s over, go home….shoo.
July 3rd, 2005 at 9:45 pm
Joe Steel: “Sounds more to me like the word “meme” is a meme to avoid having to take anything we say seriously. Also, I don’t care how many democrats were for the bill; I’m against it. I am, after all, capable of independent thought.
Finally, if Bush had enough reason to invade Iraq besides WMDs, why did he even bring them up?”
Ok, since Joe claims to be capable of independent thought, how come he reiterates (look up the word Joe) the Classical Democrat Memes? Now, Joe, I shouldn’t have to tell you that cliche’s become cliche’s because there is an element of truth to them. Comprende? (Joe, that is Spanish for “understand?”) Similarly, memes become memes, not because there is necessarily any truth to them, but because they have been repeated time and time again. Perhaps you think pointing out your meme is a meme in itself? If so, you probably also failed logic. Pointing out repeatedly an erroneous (look that one up too Joe, it means wrong) meme is not a meme in and of itself, but those who cannot defend their pov (Joe, that means point of view) are quick to say that the other guy’s correction is a meme. Kinda like the pot calling the kettle black huh? I bet you understand that one Joe, after all, it is taught in elementary school and we can presume that you made it that far.
Seriously Joe, and without the ad hominem attacks (that means personal attacks rather than refuting the argument) (whoops, another ad hominem - See Joe, you just bring out the worst in me) the reason that WMD’s were mentioned is that ALL national intelligence services figured he had them. Joe, this guy buried Jet Fighters… do you REALLY suppose he can’t hide something else? Really? Hmm, maybe I was wrong about the extent of your education after all. At any rate, unlike some of the other commenters, I’m going to encourage you to continue commenting, here, my blog, other conservative blogs. Not only are you so deliciously easy to take apart, but one has so much fun doing it. TTFN!