Posted on 02/20/2006 11:29:29 PM PST by Thunder90
A top Pentagon official who was responsible for tracking Saddam Hussein's weapons programs before and after the 2003 liberation of Iraq, has provided the first-ever account of how Saddam Hussein "cleaned up" his weapons of mass destruction stockpiles to prevent the United States from discovering them.
"The short answer to the question of where the WMD Saddam bought from the Russians went was that they went to Syria and Lebanon," former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense John A. Shaw told an audience Saturday at a privately sponsored "Intelligence Summit" in Alexandria, Va. (www.intelligencesummit.org).
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
bttt
PING
What HASN'T happened to the WMD's?
ping
And .. it proves what Israeli intel satellite photos showed .. huge Russian trucks moving equipment and stockpiles into Syria just a few weeks before we began the thunder run into Baghdad!
This is a sad day for the dems .. they have invested their whole ideology upon "Bush lied - no WMD".
So .. Bush DIDN'T LIE! Bush and the rest of the intel community believed the WMD existed .. and it was only Israel who captured the pictures of the truth - Russia moving the WMD into Syria from Iraq. Amazing!
Now .. how foolish does the supposedly "Christian" minister look after his slap in the face to President Bush about "no WMD" ..??
Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney was less reticent. He thought the reason was Iran. "With Iran moving faster than anyone thought in its nuclear programs," he told NewsMax, "the administration needed the Russians, the Chinese and the French, and was not interested in information that would make them look bad."
This story is still only appearing in Newsmax.
I heard something strange to that effect in the Saddam tapes, something about the French and Russians
Even if their were no WMD's Bush didnt lie.
lie Audio pronunciation of "lie" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (l)
n.
1. A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood.
2. Something meant to deceive or give a wrong impression.
For it to be lie you need to Prove that he knew beforehand that NO WMD's existed. Since everyone told him they had WMD's and even Clintons CIA director told him that it was a "slam dunk" im sure he believed that they had them.
Well .. I agree .. because he had to wilfully know they didn't exist .. and as you say .. he did believe they existed - and HE HAS BEEN PROVEN CORRECT.
Just because the WMD weren't in Iraq didn't mean they didn't exist somewhere.
yep
You had me worried there for a minute.
It's so funny how all the MSM has ever been interested in was Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. Now when there might be a NEW angle on the story they never tire of, they are on week two of this nothing Dick Cheney story.
I don't recall this obsession with Hillary's behavior after Vince Foster died. I do recall a lot of stories about how hard it was on the Clintons losing their friend, though.
bttt
There was a posting last week where three actual sites located in Syria where WMD's were stored were identified.
Russia has not been a friend to the United States since mid way through WWII when it was obvious that it was only time before Hitler's Germany would be defeated.
It's the Russians who supplied the Iraqi's with the nuclear equipment (destroyed by Israel 1982) and it is our friends the Russians who have the world currently on the brink by supplying the nuclear plant / equipment to Iran.
ping for later read
But, But, but,..... Russia said Saddam didn't have any WMD..... That's why they were against the war....
Oh wait, that was half true. Saddam didn't have any WMD, after Russia moved them for him...
If I remember correctly and I am sure I do. The equipment and the bases were under constant surveillance from American air based and space based resources.
Why was this not flagged up at the time.
The movement of all this material would of been noticed and recorded. Why is it the only people who mention this are ex employees of the Pentagon and White House
Is this a real smoking gun or operation muddy the waters.
That is my take on this situation.
We went to war to remove Saddam and to remove the threat of a Nuclear Chemical or Biological Armed Iraq.
The fact there were no WMD found in Iraq has had a major world wide impact on the continuation of the War on Terror.
Our Intelligence agencies have been made to look like idiots at best liars at worst.
It has been a thorn in the side of many governments who want to support the war on terror more fully.
If this is true it is up to the President to go live with this information, citing dates,timings movements and locations.
Ping
Ping
BTTT
This will be ignored as righwingnut craziness by anyone but us.
There is a question that really needs to be asked.
If all the RATS jumped on the "there was no WMD" bandwagon at the same time, who told them that the WMD wasn't there?
I mean, "there is WMD, there is WMD, there is WMD, there are no WMD's in Iraq." Someone told the RATS because they changed their tune very quickly and used it to try and kill Bush's reelection. So who told them and when were they told?
Russia is no friend to the US. All they did was change a geo political global military strategy for a geo political global financial strategy. It was easier to give up all those nations, consolidate, earn enough money to make the elite wealthy and then regroup.
Gee, they have religion there now and some people are making money. Meanwhile they are clamping down on free speech and stealing elections. Wait, that is what the RATS are doing here.
"re :The obvious question is if we know where they are why haven't we done anything to confiscate them."
Look at the politics. If I was a RAT operative if we found them in Lebanon I would go nuts and say how do we know we have them all? In Iraq we knew where they were and Hussein was isolated. That would not only scare people it would embolden the terrorists.
It was politically cheaper for Bush to know that they are secure out of country. Remember, he did the right thing and has the law on his side. All the RATS have is conjecture, innuendo and lies that could all be disproven.
More proof that Russia is our "Friend"==
More like conspiracy theory. Already posted here. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1581496/posts
"Why was this not flagged up at the time."
IIRC - It was part of Powell's report to the UN .. although I don't recall if Powell mentioned where we got the satellite images or who owned the trucks .. and it was only later acknowledged that it was strongly suspected the trucks were Russian.
Right after Condi Rice (who speaks fluent Russian) was appointed SecState - she made a quick trip to Russia. Within a few days of that visit - this story about the trucks being Russian began to filter out. I always wondered if Condi went to inform Putin personally that we knew the trucks belonged to him and the information was going to be made public. I'm guessing .. but it seemed like a strange coincidence.
I believe Israel's images only confirmed what we also knew - but I don't recall whether Powell said where he got the images - although the info was on the internet that the images were satellite video from Israel. And .. I remember watching the presentation and seeing the actual video of the trucks moving from Iraq to Syria.
RAT's do indeed have a lot in common with the RED's
I think it's time for Colin Powell to cue up those satellite photos again showing frantic activity at the Iraq/Syria border in the weeks leading up to Sadaam's downfall.
Sadly, this is a widespread belief, that the "whole point" of the invasion was to "confiscate" some objects (WMDs). I wish people would give it just a moment's thought before they say things like this, because they'd realize how silly that sounds.
You don't invade another country in order to "confiscate" some items, and that was not the "whole point" of the invasion at all.
The whole point of the invasion was to dethrone the government of Saddam Hussein. It was to smash up the power of Hussein and his Baathists so that they no longer ruled that territory. That was the whole point of the invasion, and we succeeded.
Now, were "WMDs" in the mix? Of course: "WMDs" were a reason we wanted to dethrone Saddam Hussein. He had demonstrated a willingness to use them and ambitions to create more. Therefore, that helped convince us of the necessity to dethrone him. (Which was the purpose of the war.)
What about all those "WMDs" arguments we made before the UN? Didn't that make it seem like our goal was to "confiscate" WMDs? Well, no. The reason we were making those arguments was that among other things his ongoing WMD ambition put him in technical violation of some UN resolutions; so "WMDs" were also a reason we argued before the UNSC that they should join us in our war (this argument failed, alas). They were, in a sense, "charges" we tried to bring him up on in front of the UNSC.
But "confiscating" them was NOT "the reason" we invaded. We invaded to depose Saddam Hussein, not to "confiscate" some things.
I doubt there has been any war fought anywhere in recent centuries which one nation launched against another nation solely for the purpose of "confiscating" some objects. It even sounds silly to me.
p.s. Another way to see that my way of looking at things is correct - with my way of looking at things, everyone's actions make sense. With your way of looking at things, everyone's actions make no sense, and you start drawing silly conclusions like we need to "lay waste to" Syria and Lebanon. That's a silly conclusion because it proceeds from a flawed premise (that the "whole point" was to "confiscate" some WMDs). The whole point was to unseat Saddam Hussein's government.
israeli disinfo? really?
How could they have been moved if they didn't exist and if Clinton had destroyed them?
Oh, please Dear Democrats. I have to hear this........
Sorry but I remember the build up to war as well.
And the main point was to go in and find and destroy any WMD and WMC.
It was stated that he had a number of systems. The point was also raised that while he may not use them he may hand them over to a terrorist organistion to use.
A point I challenged on FR at the time and was roundly flamed
The point is do they exist and if they do where are they and even more worrying who now controls them.
Russia again shows its true stripes.
Or a few months from now when some terrorist group uses them.
The fact is do they exist, if so where are they who controls them.
Is the silence from the government because they have lost them and don't want people to know.
Where are they who controls them and what weapon systems are we talking about.
bump
Russia again shows its true stripes.
If the Iran connection cited in the article is the reason we let them get away with this, I'm a little ambivalent. Russia may not be the Soviet Union any more but it is certainly not a 'friend', whatever that word means, if anything, when used in the context of geopolitics.
If JWB had lost the election because if it I'd be angry. JWB had to know about this and chose not to expose it for reasons of national security, thereby risking his own reelection. What a statesman!!
And the DIMs had to know about this as well and tried to exploit the fact JWB wouldn't expose the truth. What scum bag low life traitors.
Or a few months from now when some terrorist group uses them.
The fact is do they exist, if so where are they who controls them.
Hopefully, Russia still controls them. And if they know we know this story, they'll make sure they are not used.
I hate to rely on Russia for anything, but this sounds like a Realpolitik situation to me.
I snorted when I read this, sorry I don't mean to be rude but even if this is true and Russia does control them, there is rampant corruption in the Russian military and Arabs have
1) Good connections with the Russian military
2)Plenty of the folding stuff.
For a real worse case scenario, Iran is tempting us to attack them because they control some of the weapon systems and will use them when we attack there nuclear facilities.
I snorted when I read this, sorry I don't mean to be rude but even if this is true and Russia does control them, there is rampant corruption in the Russian military and Arabs have.
I can understand why you would snort about it. However, it's not a perfect world and if it is the best we can do right now, it is what it is.
It's better they are in Russia's hands than Saddam's. And they know we know. It's Realpolitiks.
On the other hand, the whole story could be Israeli disinformation. That wouldn't surprise me either.
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