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Newsweek's Iraq Report Falls on Deaf Ears
alternet.org ^
| By Norman Solomon
Posted on 03/03/2003 2:12:39 PM PST by Megalomaniac
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To: Megalomaniac
It's hard to imagine how any journalist on the war beat could read the article's lead without doing a double take: "Hussein Kamel, the highest-ranking Iraqi official ever to defect from Saddam Hussein's inner circle, told CIA and British intelligence officers and U.N. inspectors in the summer of 1995 that after the Gulf War, Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to deliver them." Great, Saddam should have no problem providing documentation as to how they were destroyed. Nor should he be blocking inspectors. The fact that the opposite has happened, along with a clandestine nuclear program only uncovered after a defecter's report, shows that this defector was in all liklihood a red herring, and people are ignoring the Newsweak article because the claims of one defector simply don't fit with the facts.
2
posted on
03/03/2003 2:16:57 PM PST
by
dirtboy
(FreeRepublic - making liberals look like the idiots they truly are since 1997)
To: Megalomaniac
So, let me get this straight.
Newsweak lies about what the defector said, and therefore the U.S. and British governments are not credible?
3
posted on
03/03/2003 2:17:00 PM PST
by
The Man
To: Megalomaniac
"Hussein Kamel, the highest-ranking Iraqi official ever to defect from Saddam Hussein's inner circle, told CIA and British intelligence officers and U.N. inspectors in the summer of 1995 that after the Gulf War, Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to deliver them." I guess it was a mistake for Iraq to conceal that from the U.N. inspectors in 1998, when they drew up their list of existing chemical and biological weapons.
4
posted on
03/03/2003 2:18:05 PM PST
by
Physicist
To: Megalomaniac
I read this report. How conveiently this author leaves the more damning parts out. The defector did claim the stocks were destroyed, according to Newsweek, but he also claimed that all the notes and records and equipment were left intact, so that the program could be resumed as soon as the UN inspectors left Iraq.
He claims there was thousands of blueprints and notes that were scattered and hidden. Now the inspectors left in 1998, so according to Newsweek, that program should have been going full blast for at least 4 years.
To: The Man
Exactly. We should believe what we read in NewsWeek WHY? Notice how the media is pushing a "Bush has no credibility" issue? See a recent Krugman article, and a media-promoted blitz on Pelosi and Daschle-instigated campaign to push this on the public. Newsweek is nothing more than a mouthpiece for the corrupt Democrat party. So why should we believe a word of the drivel they print, when we know it is screened by pro-liberal activists? Pure garbage...
6
posted on
03/03/2003 2:21:09 PM PST
by
mallardx
To: Megalomaniac
Assuming the Newsweek article presents accurate information, it still doesn't negate the very real possibility of continued production Iraqi WMD.
A lot has happened over the intervening years and we can't say that we feel any better about Saddam and his ultimate goals.
At some point you either trust the over all US/British objective or you don't. I feel a whole lot better shaping destiny, rather than becoming historical fodder.
7
posted on
03/03/2003 2:21:59 PM PST
by
Paraclete
To: Megalomaniac
Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to deliver them." "
Didn't they just find a buried cache of VX & warheads etc..this past weekend?
so, burying chemicals & warheads is the same as destroying them. Gotcha. I'll write that down..
8
posted on
03/03/2003 2:22:35 PM PST
by
stylin19a
(all in all - I'd rather be golfing)
To: Megalomaniac
Megalomaniac signed up 2003-02-10.
9
posted on
03/03/2003 2:23:13 PM PST
by
Bohemund
To: Megalomaniac
Is it just me, or should there have been a Barf Alert here?
Yeah, I believe a guy that's been dead for 8 years. Sounds like he had a severe case of the Ritters before they done him in.
10
posted on
03/03/2003 2:24:15 PM PST
by
lorrainer
(It MUST be true! I read it on the Internet!)
To: I still care
Good point.
11
posted on
03/03/2003 2:26:04 PM PST
by
hippy hate me
(Peace had 18 chances)
To: Megalomaniac
Hussein and his brother committes suicide by shooting themselves in the head 6 times each. It is an affliction common to Iraqis who provide evidence supporting Saddam Insanes positions.
12
posted on
03/03/2003 2:28:43 PM PST
by
jwalsh07
To: Megalomaniac
The mass media's silence in the wake of this report is due to the fact that even the left-wing anti-American newspapers and TV outlets think this is a load of total bullfeathers spoken by a practiced Iraqi liar and published by an unreliable newsweekly that will print anything to harm the US position.
Okay?
To: UncleSamUSA
Here's the interview they are basing this on.Intersting enough there is a German citizen prominently mentioned and Hamai's conclusion is that Saddam will never change. Small consolation, but he can spend eternity knowing that he was right.
14
posted on
03/03/2003 2:42:53 PM PST
by
jwalsh07
To: I still care
Shortly after Kamel's defection, in an effort to deflect the accusations Saddam felt were coming, Saddam buried a ton of documents in a chicken farm and let the inspectors find them. Tons of stuff about illegal chemical and nuclear weapons plans.
One of the sources I've read say that Kamel was apparently an unscrupulous fool and thug, just the kind of person who can rise under Saddam's regime. He was, after all, dumb enough to return to Iraq even though it was obvious to virtually everyone around him that the move would be fatal.
As for Saddam, his brinksmanship about those missiles should tell you everything you want to know about his desire to have his weapons destroyed.
'nuff said.
D
15
posted on
03/03/2003 2:43:31 PM PST
by
daviddennis
(Visit amazing.com for protest accounts, video & more!)
To: Megalomaniac
Iraq "has never shown the documentation to support Kamel's story" If Saddam had exculpatory scientific, documentary and eye-witness evidence he destroyed his chem/bio weapons, doncha think he would have told us by now?
Why risk annihilation by not disclosing destruction?
This story does not hold water.
16
posted on
03/03/2003 2:44:44 PM PST
by
Uncle Miltie
(Peace is Good, Freedom is Better!)
To: dirtboy
Great, Saddam should have no problem providing documentation... BINGO!
Gee, the corporate pro-war media is simply suppressing the news. And why hasn't Saddam trumpeted this, if true and finally what has Iraq done since 1995, say like purchase mobile labs from Germany.
To: Megalomaniac
***Sigh***...
[Hussein Kamel's defection] added a definite sense of urgency.... Suddenly, Hussein Kamel defects, and it's out there, laid before the world: Iraq is cheating, Iraq is lying, Iraq has not complied, and not complied in a big way. What are you going to do about it?
Iraq had a big problem on its hands, because it needed a new explanation for [Kamel's revelations]. And the explanation they hit upon was, "We are shocked, shocked, to discover that under our very noses, Kamel all this time has been hiding all kinds of weapons and documentation. We've discovered it on his chicken farm, and here it is. You may have it all."
And they deliver to UNSCOM one million pages of newly-declared documents, which show a lot of biological weapons programs, which show a lot more chemical weapons programs, which show material shortfalls, which show missile stuff, which show nuclear stuff. But -- and it took a long time to do this -- as UNSCOM went through these million pages of documents, and hundreds of crates, they found that there were interesting gaps.
For example, all the biological stuff was described as research. There was nothing on weaponization, that is to say, nothing on taking what you know to be a toxic bug -- anthrax say -- and putting it into a warhead that can be used as a military weapon. That's a big part of the problem. ... So in each case, Iraq kept back something important. Usually the most important thing.
Hussein Kamel's defection tells UNSCOM that not only have they been missing something, but they've been missing a huge, huge amount of what they were supposed to be finding. Way more than they had ever suspected. Their worst nightmare scenario was eclipsed by the documents on this chicken farm, and it meant the beginning of a major new phase of biological, missile, chemical, and nuclear investigations.
The quantity was staggering. It took the U.N. weapons inspectors months and months and months just to go through and translate every -- and create a database for what was in those papers. It revealed that Saddam Hussein had also hidden far more than anyone ever realized he had, to begin with. This really was the critical turning point of the entire eight years in trying to deal with Saddam Hussein. It put the U.N. weapons program back on track.
Even PBS got it right
Kamel said Iraq had not abandoned its WMD ambitions. The stocks had been destroyed to hide the programs from the U.N. inspectors, but Iraq had retained the design and engineering details of these weapons. Kamel talked of hidden blueprints, computer disks, microfiches and even missile-warhead molds. People who work in MIC [Iraqs Military Industrial Commission, which oversaw the countrys WMD programs] were asked to take documents to their houses, he said. Why preserve this technical material? Said Kamel: It is the first step to return to production after U.N. inspections wind down.
MSNBC got it right
Kamel was a scapegoat...
To: The Man
Under the unwritten rules of American media coverage, such denials tend to end the matter when the president and Congress have already decided that war is necessary. Anybody who tries to portray the "American media" as on board the war train is not credible.
19
posted on
03/03/2003 2:58:12 PM PST
by
cyncooper
(God Be With President Bush)
To: Megalomaniac
Why do you keep posting these stories from Alternet?
20
posted on
03/03/2003 3:00:53 PM PST
by
Sender
(-A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. -WOPR-)
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