Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: LS
The proof is in the pudding. Where are they at? Everybody knows that Iraq had WMD'S in its past. Iraq and Iran both used them in their joint war. There were WMD's destroyed after the first Iraq war. Sadaam's son-in-law told the CIA when interviewed by them that the remainder had been destroyed after Desert Storm. All these quotes by you are past quotes which are exactly right. The only problem you have is that there was a lapse of about ten years time. Why don't you get up to speed on neartime conditions instead of dwelling in the past?

P.S. Your argument would be a lot more persuasive if WMD's had been found!

23 posted on 01/24/2004 5:57:09 PM PST by meenie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies ]


To: meenie
" Sadaam's son-in-law told the CIA when interviewed by them that the remainder had been destroyed after Desert Storm."

I'm sure that is wrong. UNSCOM was about to quit when Saddam's sons-in-law defected in 1995. After they spilled the beans, UNSCOM found a bunch more stuff until the Iraqis threw them out in 1998.
29 posted on 01/24/2004 6:36:27 PM PST by Western Phil
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies ]

To: meenie
The proof is in the pudding. Where are they at? Everybody knows that Iraq had WMD'S in its past. Iraq and Iran both used them in their joint war. There were WMD's destroyed after the first Iraq war. Sadaam's son-in-law told the CIA when interviewed by them that the remainder had been destroyed after Desert Storm

You left out a few details...

1991/April - Iraq says they say they have no biological weapons program.

1991/August - Iraq says they conducted research activities for defensive purposes.

1992/May - Iraq admits to a biological weapons program, but claims it was only defensive.

1995/July - Iraq admits to an offensive biological weapons program, but denies weaponization.

1995/August - Iraq admits to a far more extensive biological weapons program than previously, including weaponization, but also claims that all such weapons and related items were destroyed in 1991.

SOURCE:
UNSCOM timeline from http://www.un.org/Depts/unscom/Chronology/chronologyframe.htm
http://www.un.org/Depts/unscom/sres95-864.htm

In 1995, after five years of denials and progressive admissions when confronted with irrefutable evidence, the Iraqis confessed to manufacturing 8,500 liters of concentrated anthrax and then claimed that it had been destroyed in 1991.

They spent four years trying to conceal the fact that a biological weapons program had ever existed, but failed to get rid of all the documenting evidence, which eventually led to their confession. Then they expect us to believe they destroyed it all and there is no documentation at all to prove it has been destroyed. It is possible that some of the anthrax may have destroyed in an attempt to convince the inspectors that it was gone, but inconceivable that all of it was destroyed, when you consider how valuable it was to Hussein and how easy to conceal it would be. How hard would it be to hide a 2-liter soda bottle in a country the size of California and how long would it take to find it?

[Note - according to weapons experts, 8,500 liters of anthrax could kill between tens of millions and hundreds of millions, depending on how it's deployed]
http://www.csis.org/mideast/reports/terror.html
http://www.geocities.com/micro2052000/warfare.htm

All three leaders of the UN inspection teams, Rolf Ukeus - UNSCOM until 1997, Richard Butler - UNSCOM from 1997 through 1999 and Hans Blix - UNMOVIC from 1999 to 2003 reported to the UN at various times that the amount of growth media that Iraq had obtained was under-reported and many attempts were made to obscure the true levels. All three reached the assumption that Iraq either may have or probably did produce as much as three to four times more anthrax than they declared.

S/1998/308 8 April 1998 letter from Richard Butler, then head of UNSCOM to the Security Council
[excerpt]
4.10.4 Iraq claims that the BW programme was obliterated in 1991 as demonstrated by the unilateral destruction of the weapons deployed, bulk agent and some documents associated with the BW programme. Iraq, however, retained the facilities, growth media, equipment and groupings of core technical personnel at Al Hakam, and continued to deny the BW programme's existence. In spite of Iraq's continued denial of the preservation of its BW programme, the Government of Iraq has yet to offer documentation of its formal renunciation. The head of the Iraqi delegation took the position that he could offer no defence to justify the concealment and deception prior to 1995. These positions and acts raise serious doubts about Iraq's assertion that the BW programme was truly obliterated in 1991.

In Jan of 2003 Hans Blix reported: There are strong indications that Iraq produced more anthrax than it declared, and that at least some of this was retained after the declared destruction date. It might still exist. Either it should be found and be destroyed under UNMOVIC supervision or else convincing evidence should be produced to show that it was, indeed, destroyed in 1991.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocusnewsiraq.asp?NewsID=354&sID=6

From the unclassified portion of David Kay's report in October, you can find these two small excerpts:

All of this suggests Iraq after 1996 further compartmentalized its program and focused on maintaining smaller, covert capabilities that could be activated quickly to surge the production of BW agents.

... and then...

Discussions with Iraqi scientists uncovered agent R&D work that paired overt work with nonpathogenic organisms serving as surrogates for prohibited investigation with pathogenic agents. Examples include: B. Thurengiensis (Bt) with B. anthracis (anthrax), and medicinal plants with ricin. In a similar vein, two key former BW scientists, confirmed that Iraq under the guise of legitimate activity developed refinements of processes and products relevant to BW agents. The scientists discussed the development of improved, simplified fermentation and spray drying capabilities for the simulant Bt that would have been directly applicable to anthrax, and one scientist confirmed that the production line for Bt could be switched to produce anthrax in one week if the seed stock were available. http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2003/david_kay_10022003.html

In plain English, this means the Iraqis were continuing to do research on refining anthrax, but had disguised it by using a surrogate that was not restricted.

We still don't know where everything went or is. We do now know that they continued to work on their anthrax development program right up until the war.

30 posted on 01/24/2004 6:46:54 PM PST by tentmaker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies ]

To: meenie
Everybody knows that Iraq had WMD'S in its past.

Then it was up to Saddam to prove that the dangers these weapons posed no-longer existed. In fact he was told to do this with a UN resolution.

Saddam didn't do this -- Saddam got what he deserved.

34 posted on 01/24/2004 6:57:10 PM PST by FreeReign (It's my Freep-aversary)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies ]

To: meenie
Wrongo. There is no, and I repeat, NO evidence that Saddam ever "destroyed" anything. There is UN evidence from 2002 and David Kay's evidence that just the contrary is the case . . . that he DIDN'T destroy everything.

Where are they? Ask Kay. He resigned because he's convinced they were moved into SYRIA. Course, no one bothers to mention that. They only note that he "resigned."

And when I'm talking about Germany's, France's, Britain's, Russia's, etc. INTEL SERVICES, I'm talking about what they were saying in 2001, 2002, and 2003. You are clueless. Read what the INTEL services said.

101 posted on 01/25/2004 7:23:08 AM PST by LS (CNN is the Amtrack of news.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies ]

To: meenie
FYI...

Washington---The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) continues to misstate the degree of success it achieved on dismantling Saddam Hussein’s covert nuclear-bomb program during nuclear inspections in Iraq between 1991 and 1998, according to an analysis by the Nuclear Control Institute (NCI), a non-proliferation research and advocacy center.

“IAEA’s recent claims that they have ‘neutralized [Iraq’s] nuclear-weapon program’ and ‘destroyed all their key buildings and equipment’ related to weaponization are patently false, and the Agency’s own inspection reports prove it,” said Steven Dolley, NCI research director.

Dolley, citing IAEA’s own inspection reports as documentation, said: “Iraq has never surrendered to inspectors its two completed designs for a nuclear bomb, nuclear-bomb components such as explosive lenses and neutron initiators that it is known to have possessed, or almost any documentation of its efforts to enrich uranium to bomb-grade using gas centrifuges, devices which are small and readily concealed from reconnaissance.”[5]

Moreover, IAEA has previously conceded that Iraq’s weaponization R&D---small-scale technical research devoted to the design of a nuclear bomb’s components---is not readily detected by means of inspections. IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei stated in 1998 that “no matter how comprehensive the inspection, any country-wide verification process, in Iraq or anywhere else, has a degree of uncertainty that aims to verify the absence of readily concealable objects such as small amounts of nuclear material or weapons components.”[6]

The IAEA’s own guidelines for the safeguarding of highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium gives the conversion time for transforming these materials into weapons components as on the order of seven to ten days or one to three weeks, depending on the form the materials are in (metal, oxide or nitrate) when the materials are acquired by means of diversion or theft.[7] Thus, Iraq could be capable of producing a nuclear weapon in less than a month with sufficient diverted or stolen fissile material if it has managed to fabricate and conceal all of the non-nuclear components of a weapon.

“THERE THEY GO AGAIN”: IA.E.A. MISSTATES ITS RECORD ON DISMANTLING SADDAM’S NUCLEAR-BOMB PROGRAM

188 posted on 01/26/2004 7:06:53 AM PST by ravingnutter
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson