And if the WMD are found ... Connecting the dots

For most Democrats and journalists, the question of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is a closed, because it is politically embarrassing for President Bush if none are found. But if Saddam's arsenal exists, and our enemies have access to it, we could suffer something far worse than embarrassment if we pretend that it does not exist. Here are some dots crying out for connection:

Explosives and poison gas that could have killed as many as 20,000 people and decapitated his government came from Syria, Jordan's King Abdullah told the San Francisco Chronicle last Saturday. An al Qaida cell associated with Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a Jordanian national thought to be masterminding al Qaida operations in Iraq, smuggled three cars containing 17.5 tons of explosives and a deadly chemical agent of an undisclosed type into Jordan early in April. Targets for the attack were Jordan's military intelligence headquarters, the prime minister's office, and the U.S. embassy, which are located close to each other in the Jordanian capital of Amman.

Former U.S. weapons inspector David Kay told Congress last fall that U.S. satellite reconnaissance showed substantial truck traffic between Iraq and Syria in the weeks before Operation Iraqi Freedom began last March 19.

A Syrian journalist who defected to Europe told a Dutch newspaper Jan. 5 that chemical and biological weapons developed by Saddam Hussein's regime were being stored in tunnels dug under the town of al-Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria; in the village of Tal Snan, near a big Syrian air force base, and on the Lebanese border south of the city of Homs. Nizar Najoef told the Dutch Telegraaf that the WMD transfer was organized by the commanders of Saddam's Special Republican Guard with the help of a cousin of Syrian strong man Bashir Assad. Najoef's remarks strengthen the view of some in U.S. and Israeli intelligence that many of Saddam's most deadly weapons were moved to Syria just before the war began. "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," James Clapper, head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (since renamed the National Geo-Spatial Intelligence Agency), told the New York Times last October.

On April 12, the official Iranian news agency "reported" that U.S. forces were secretly hiding weapons of mass destruction in southern and western Iraq. This is, of course, a lie. But the telling of it suggests the Iranians think U.S. forces might soon be discovering some hidden caches of WMD. The Iranians were especially alarmed that the U.S. was interviewing scientists connected with Saddam's weapons programs. "A professor of physics at Baghdad University told the MNA correspondent that a group of his colleagues who are highly specialized in military, chemical and biological fields have been either bribed or threatened during the last weeks to provide written information on what they know about various programs and research centers and the possible storage of WMD equipment," the Iranian news agency said. Charles Duelfer, who has replaced Kay as chief weapons inspector, told Congress March 29 that few Iraqi scientists have been willing to talk to Americans. "Many perceive a grave risk in speaking with us," Duelfer said. "On the one hand, there is the fear of prosecution or arrest. On the other, there is fear former regime supporters will exact retribution."

========= Chemical Warhead found in Kirkuk =============

Chemical warhead found at an Iraqi air base, marked with a green band,
the symbol for chemical weaponry. Trace amounts of a nerve agent were found
at two spots along the ~meter-long warhead. These amounts are consistent with
leakage from the chemically armed weapon. A 13-foot missile was found next to it.

========= Halabja =========

Dead children, previously playing in Halabja
Victims of Saddams' WMD in March 1988.

=========== French missiles FIRST given to Iraq to be USED Against US and Coalition Heroes =========

French missiles found by the Poles, and to protect France, blown up.

Froggies said they did not say "2003". LOL. Decide for yourself.

Iraqi missiles given to, and now located in, Syria:

========= RUSSIAN MISSILES AND DIRTY BOMBS FOUND IN IRAQ =========

Russian-made R-60, NATO AA-8 Aphid, air-to-air missiles were found..
The Russian-made missiles are >6 feet long. Each carries 3.5 pounds of uranium.
wrapped around a high explosive warhead (13.2-pound) making a "dirty bomb".

Also found in Iraq:

* A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service
that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.

* A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials
working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.

* Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home,
one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.

* New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF),
and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.

* Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in
resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).

* A line of UAVs 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 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.

* 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 UN.

* Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km -
well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed
Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.

Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology
related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles --probably the No Dong -- 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles,
and other prohibited military equipment.

Still missing based on the UNSCOM report to the UN Security Council in January 1999,
when the UN inspectors left Iraq in 1998, they had been unable to account for:

• up to 360 tons of bulk chemical warfare agents, including 1.5 tons of VX nerve agent;

• up to 3,000 tons of precursor chemicals, including approximately 300 tons which,
in the Iraqi chemical warfare program, were unique to the production of VX;

• growth media procured for biological agent production (enough to produce
over three times the 8,500 litres of anthrax spores Iraq admitted to UN inspectors to having manufactured);

• over 30,000 special munitions for delivery of chemical and biological agents;

• 20 al-Hussein missles with a range of 650 km, in violation
of UN Security Council Resolution 687 (Iraq had told UNSCOM that it filled these warheads with anthrax and botulinum);

• 2,850 tons of mustard gas, 210 tons of tabun, and 795 tons of sarin and cyclosarin;

• development of the Al-Samoud short-range missle (which had the capability to fly beyond the 150 km allowed by UN resolutions)

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