Saddam Has Nukes, Ex-Weapons Inspector Says

Newsmax.com ^ | Friday Dec. 6, 2002 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com

[SirChas]

Saddam Has Nukes, Ex-Weapons Inspector Says

A former U.N. weapons inspector who was renowned for his ability to ferret out Iraqi weapons violations during the late 1990's charged point blank on Thursday that Saddam Hussein now has nuclear weapons.

"I have no doubt that he has nukes," Bill Tierney told nationally syndicated radio host Sean Hannity.

"He's going to use non-persistent chemicals against his own people to put down an insurrection," the ace inspector predicted, before adding chillingly, "He'll use bio and nukes against us."

Stunned by the revelation, the radio host pressed for confirmation:

HANNITY: You have no doubt that he has nukes? Or he's close (to getting them)?

TIERNEY: I have no doubt that he has nukes.

HANNITY: You think he has nuclear weapons.

TIERNEY: Yes.

HANNITY: Why are you the only (former weapons inspector) saying that?

TIERNEY: Well, there's a few more. One reason why is, during the 90's in the intelligence community, there was just a pathological risk aversion. The reason being was that our president at the time, Bill Clinton, fundamentally changed the purpose of the United States military from fighting and winning wars to crisis management and keeping his poll numbers up.

Now, if you're not out to win, there's no need to take risks. And so what you found is people being very guarded about everything, every kind of assessment you could make. (End of Excerpt)

Before he ran afoul of the system Tierney had built a powerful reputation for credibility, prompting the U.N. to personally recruit him in 1996 for the task of inspecting some of Saddam's most sensitive suspected weapons facilities.

But he was forced to resign two years later amidst charges he was spying for the U.S. Tierney now says he was locked out for doing what he figured was his job - giving the Pentagon targets for military action.

"What I did was identified those people who have sold their souls to keep Saddam in power. I made it my goal to find every place where they are," Tierney told the London's Daily Mirror in October.

Still, his aggressive pursuit of Saddam's weapons violations won him more than a few fans at U.S. Central Command, where Tierney's boss, Army Brig. Gen. Keith Alexander, wrote in one of his job evaluations: "His ability to consistently seek and identify priority target intelligence information is uncanny and is the characteristic that separates him from his contemporaries."

Tierney told Hannity that a 1997 inspection he attempted to conduct at Saddam's Jabal Makhul presidential palace lead him to suspect that the Iraqi dictator already had the bomb.

"Certain things convinced me that they had proscribed items at this presidential site. That led to the inspection in September 1997 where we were locked out. There was something about that. The just came up and said, 'There will be no inspection. Good Day.' And they walked off."

Tierney said the rebuff was "completely different" from other inspections of sensitive sites, where some sort of compromise was always worked out.

Another sign of sinister activity: As Tierney and his team were being turned away, a U.N. helicopter attempting to overfly Jabal Makhul nearly crashed when an Iraqi official on board lunged at the controls.

"That was a distraction to keep that helicopter from going over to the other side of the mountain to see what they were doing" at the facility, said Tierney.

He described Jabal Makhul as a "gigantic" complex of warehouses and underground tunnels, before noting that last year the London Times reported Saddam was storing nuclear weapons in bunkers in and around the Hamrin Mountains.

"There is only one heavily guarded place in the Hamrin Mountains," Tierney told Hannity. "And that's where we were, Jabal Makhul."

Still, despite efforts by Iraqi officials to keep inspectors away from Jabal Makhul, U.N. officials continued to give Saddam the benefit of the doubt, he complained.

"If you had ambiguous reporting; it could mean he has the nukes, it could mean that he doesn't." he said. "Normally the call would be, 'Oh well, that doesn't confirm so therefore he's still developing. He doesn't have it,'" Tierney said he was told.

The ex-inspector predicted that Saddam would likely use his nukes, "maybe (in) Israel, maybe here."

Calling the current inspections "a complete total waste of time," Tierney warned, "You have a leader of a country who's bent on stealing, killing and destroying. And it is time to resolve the issue and solve it. Crisis management is over."

"There's way too much at stake," he added. "We could lose millions more of our citizens unless we wake up and take care of this."

[Edward Watson]

I think the issue is, is it better to kill thousands now to frighten them to returning to their lands or by our inaction allow tens of millions of Westerners to die later?

Which is worse? Which is more moral?

It's a frightening thought to be sure. I pray to God it'll never come to such a choice. However, the millions of Muslims who are migrating to the West every year and whom refuse to assimilate or give up barbaric notions are rapidly bringing the issue to the fore. If current demographic changes aren't immediately halted, in less than twenty years, Europe is going to disintegrate into genocidal civil wars when the Muslims attempt to force everyone to adopt Sharia and convert to Islam. It'll be bloodshed on a scale never before seen in the West. When Muslims take over France and the UK, they'll be in possession of nuclear forces so powerful that they can blackmail the world into becoming Muslim. Hell, if they are allowed to take over Israel, they would blackmail us much sooner with Israeli nukes.

[Man of the Right]

Combs throttled him when he tried to provide details.

If true, it would explain the indirection of the Adminstration's approach to Iraq so far. If Bush sends in the 101st and an American city is incinerated, Owlgore is president in 2005. If not, he carries the District of Columbia and Minnesota, if he's lucky.

[Travis McGee]

They would if they could, but I doubt that they have that much terror infrastructure in place in the USA.

[Travis McGee]

Have you guys seen the info in 73?

[Travis McGee]

That's possible, 99% of the crews on these ships are foreign.

But I don't rule out a psychosomatic cause, perhaps one or two real outbreaks of fle, followed by a hyper suggestibility on the rest.

Like when an entire high school suffers a "mystery ailment" of mass fainting or mass nausea, and it's purely in the head.

[Travis McGee]

Linear demographic projections are grim, but I prefer to see them as islemmings rushing to bite our ankles, who are in reality heading en masse for a cliff over the sea.

[Travis McGee]

Your 82: Is this high stakes poker or what?

[swarthyguy]

That Egyptian in the container was one of the strangest stories in the post Attack barrage of stories. Stupid judge let him go on bail and the guy has disappeared.

BTW, the NewYorker 9/11-Terror Archive is a superb collection.

[Travis McGee]

That judge should be hung by his nads.

[Man of the Right]

The fact Bush may invade Iraq underscores the magnitude of the risk of an imminent CBN attack in the U.S. Politically, there's nothing in a war for the Administration. Sure, winning would be nice, but any outcome less out-sided than the Gulf War would mean the end of Bush's career. Folks like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Rice are desperate because they know slightly more than the average citizen. Nobody can imagine what an unconventional attack would be like, but conservatives can imagine it more readily than the left. After such an attack, America would recall September 11 with nostalgia. Imagine "only" 3,000 people killed and $50 billion in property damage in one day. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

[txhurl]

Well, thanks for my scare for the day.

[VOA]

bump

[MHGinTN]

To appease and postpone is to court even greater devastation ... and I think the American people can get their minds around that, they voted more pubbies in this year because the despotic democrats assumed American voters couldn't fathom that truth. It is a proven fact that the Isalmikazi murderers want desperately to cause catastrophic mayhem in the U.S. To give them more and more time to prepare their next attempts is to commit suicide by a thousand cuts, bleeding trickles until our head is chopped off. The time to deal forcefully is now, er, was eight years ago, but look what a degenerate we had running things then. The obvious prospect of more of that same is what elected Bush and in 2002, more pubbies. Adults don't appease the brats and bullies, they stop them from acting out.

[Man of the Right]

Or better yet, they kill them. Then their deportment doesn't matter. Or at least, that's the way William Tecumseh Sherman, George Patton, and Curtis LeMay had it figured.

[SevenDaysInMay]

Re: #83 - Doubt "they" have an infrastructure?

Go to any college campus and look around. Each of some 14-15 campuses I have been on have a significant number of Chinese and M.E. "students" who appear more officer than civilian student. None whom I ever asked directly ever responded with an affirmative, but a few took on a newrvous flush. Over coffee, many enrolled, career track military officers (USA and a few UK) I'd met had brought up the same observations, as well as several reserve officer professors. A certain not-just-academic discipline is there to see.

Colleges and most businesses are "free-kill", gun free zones. And what, campus cops to protect and defend? What a brain drain, through .35 caliber holes. Only one percent of the American population has PhDs, and precious few of them have meaningful disciplines. Why dilute resources snuffing the masses, when it is so easy to drain our economy's human capital, with devastating short and long-term impact.

Perhaps, think of it as syllabus bombings.

[Travis McGee]

You have all that exactly correct.

All of us ordinary civilians are like ants watching elephants get ready to do battle on the horizon. We are seeing about 10% of what Bush and company are working from.