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 possible "dirty bomb".
Posted on 10/28/2004 8:13:01 AM PDT by tomahawk
Russia Denies Involvement in Iraq Weapons
1 hour, 46 minutes ago
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW - Russia angrily denied allegations Thursday that Russian forces had smuggled a cache of high explosives out of Iraq (news - web sites) prior to the U.S. invasion in March 2003.
Defense Ministry spokesman Vyacheslav Sedov dismissed the allegations as "absurd" and "ridiculous."
"I can state officially that the Russian Defense Ministry and its structures couldn't have been involved in the disappearance of the explosives, because all Russian military experts left Iraq when the international sanctions were introduced during the 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites)," he told The Associated Press.
The denial followed a story in The Washington Times on Thursday that quoted a high-ranking U.S. defense official alleging that Russian special forces had "almost certainly" helped spirit out the hundreds of tons of high explosives that went missing from the al-Qaqaa base. The newspaper based its report on an interview with John Shaw, the deputy U.S. undersecretary of defense for international technology security.
Two weeks ago, Iraqi officials told the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency that 377 tons of explosives had vanished as a result of "theft and looting ... due to lack of security." The compounds, HMX and RDX, are key components in plastic explosives, which insurgents in Iraq have used in bomb attacks.
Russia' charge d'affaires in Iraq, Ilya Morgunov, also denied the report.
"I didn't hear about any weapons to be taken out," Interfax quoted him as saying. "Moreover, there was nobody to take them out, because we actually evacuated all of our personnel."
He said there had been no Russian special forces in Iraq, only civilian specialists working for foreign firms.
Then who was in that caravan leaving Iraq that we accidentally hit when the war started??
that was a diplomatic convoy - not the trucks moving this stuff. remember, we thought at the time Saddam might be in that convoy of cars.
All Russian military experts....but that did not take into account the Russian soldiers who were left to clean up and shred papers..........
Yeah, especially since most of the boys(russians) are for sale or rent.
What did we expect them to say?
Russia, "Sure, we help old Saddam stash his weapons out of harms way and we hid his WMD's too."
Karl Rove was on as well, and he didn't mention the story.
Just another dead end, I'm afraid.
there is a difference between what actually happened, and the geo-political implications of admitting something like this. we are never going to get the Russians to admit to this, and the administration is never going to "out" the Russians. that doesn't mean the Russians didn't do it, it just means that no one is going to corroborate it.
this was the likely scenario to happen when Gertz broke this story - that's why no one is touching this Russian story on the domestic political front.
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 possible "dirty bomb".
Condi is Russia lover. Remember, they can do no wrong. Did the russians not complain when we bombed thier diplomat convoy.
true.
But that doesn't mean the WH can't simply say that the material wasn't there when US forces secured the facility. There is plenty of evidence for that. We don't need this Russian angle, we can do a better job refuting this attack by simplying saying the stuff was gone when we arrived.
Somebody knows who and what was invloved in Iraq prior to the U.S liberation. The Intel was right on. Powel said we had wrong information and intel. No way! The intel was correct...there was WMD in Iraq, but who the hell is going to say "so & so" is involved and "so and so" moved them.
This bit of info is to let the Russians know that "WE KNOW" they were in on it and that the US intel is right on the money once again. Tenent was the "scapegoat" because the CIA was correct on what was on the ground in Iraq.
Condi is a Russia expert. She won't comment before the official investigation. The Gertz article offsets the NYT article.
Is Pootie Poot going to comment on this himself?
Exactly. When GWB says that what was accomplished in his administration will be written by historians in 50 years, he isn't kidding.
I agree with you, but the WH isn't saying that. They're not saying anything except "we don't know".
I keep hoping for something stronger.
I don't know about that. A lot of the Joe Six Packs out there do not even know there is a Washington Times and do not listen to Conservative radio.
What they will here is the MSM spin on the Times piece such as what I just read in the AP story.
I think that NBC and now ABC bringing up there points along with the Pentagon's claim of it being almost impossible to get a convoy of trucks out of the site undetected and of course BC04 speaking about it will help defang the story the most.
Have you all noticed that Kerry's mouthpieces are spinning the rush into war syndrome issue and attaching it to the weapons disappearance?
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