Posted on 04/17/2004 12:14:12 PM PDT by kattracks
Jordan's King Abdullah revealed on Saturday that vehicles reportedly containing chemical weapons and poison gas that were part of a deadly al Qaeda bomb plot came from Syria, the country named by U.S. weapons inspector David Kay last year as a likely repository for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
"It was a major, major operation. It would have decapitated the government," King Abdullah told the San Francisco Chronicle. Jordanian officials estimated that the death count could have been as high as 20,000 - seven times greater than the Sept. 11 attacks.
Abdullah said that trucks containing 17.5 tons of explosives had come from Syria, though he took pains not to implicate Syrian President Bashir Assad in the al Qaeda plot, saying, "I'm completely confident that Bashir did not know about it."
In his testimony before Congress last year, Mr. Kay said U.S. satellite surveillance showed substantial vehicular traffic going from Iraq to Syria just prior to the U.S.attack on March 19, 2003 attack.
While Kay said investigators couldn't be sure the cargo contained weapons of mass destruction, one of his top advisors described the evidence as "unquestionable."
"People below the Saddam-Hussein-and-his-sons level saw what was coming and decided the best thing to do was to destroy and disperse," said James Clapper, in comments reported by the New York Times on Oct. 29. Clapper heads up the National Imagery and Mapping Agency.
Israeli intelligence has long believed that after the U.S. delayed invasion plans to allow U.N. weapons inspectors time to search for Iraq's WMDs, Saddam moved the banned weapons to Syria, the only other country where the Ba'ath Party ruled.
On April 1, Jordanian officials announced the arrest of several terrorist suspects, saying they were still hunting for two cars filled with explosives.
Five days later, the State Department revealed the attackers were linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-based terrorist considered to be one of al Qaeda's most dangerous. One of Zarqawi's targets was the U.S. embassy in Amman.
By Saturday morning European news services were quoting an unnamed Jordanian official who revealed that the al Qaeda plotters planned to use weapons of mass destruction in the foiled attack.
"We found primary materials to make a chemical bomb which, if it had exploded, would have made nearly 20,000 deaths ... in an area of one square kilometre," the official told Agence France Press.
Another operation planned by the network was to use "deadly gas against the US embassy and the prime minister's office in Amman," he added.
A car belonging to the al Qaeda plotters, containing a chemical bomb and poisonous gas, was intercepted just 75 miles from the Syrian border.
Iraq had plenty of time to transport every weapon it had to Syria if if wanted to.
'Ole Bob Woodward made it sound like it was a bad idea to plan for war while trying to broker a deal through diplomatic means. If that was the case, and you waited until all diplomatic means failed to start planning for war, we would've been going into Iraq about now.
I agree.
Click for article on the movement of Saddam's WMD from Syria to Sudan
They wanted to decapitate the government.
"..The monarch said his security services had followed the trail of the suspects and captured five trucks packed with 17.5 tons of high explosives, which apparently were intended for an attack on the Jordanian prime minister's office and the intelligence ministry. "It was a major, major operation," Abdullah said. "It would have decapitated the government." Casualties would have been "in the thousands," he added. "It couldn't have been more sinister." Abdullah said European anti-terrorism experts were aiding the Jordanian police investigation, but details were still sketchy -- including a solid identification of the type of explosive the suspects were carrying.
He said that although the trucks had come from Syria, "I'm completely confident that Bashir did not know about it," he said, referring to Syrian President Bashir Assad, whom U.S. officials have accused of allowing terrorist groups to use his country's territory. .."
On the other thread about a BBC article, it said:
Jordan 'was chemical bomb target' (WMDs al-Qaeda)
"..the suspects have confessed to plotting to detonate a chemical bomb on the Amman HQ of the Intelligence Services..."
There is different information on this developing story. The significant thing to me is the reported confession, if that is true.
We are winning ~ the bad guys are losing ~ trolls, terrorists, democrats and the mainstream media are sad ~ very sad!
A 17.5 ton bomb would devastate a city....
The question now is what are WE going to do about it now, slap someones hands with diplomatic rhetoric or nip it with hard core action in Syria before they get to the US?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.