Regards, Ivan
Posted on 02/01/2003 4:20:23 PM PST by MadIvan
THE American secretary of state Colin Powell will present “damning” evidence of Iraqi attempts to conceal banned weapons when he goes before the United Nations security council this week.
According to officials in Washington, he will draw on secret electronic surveillance to prove that Saddam Hussein’s regime has repeatedly lied to weapons inspectors.
Recordings obtained by the National Security Agency (NSA) show that Iraqis assigned to obstruct the inspectors plotted to “hide stuff” and boasted about their success.
“Hold on to your hat, we’ve got it,” one US intelligence official told Newsweek magazine. “They are saying things like, ‘Move that’, ‘Don’t be reporting that’ and ‘Ha! Can you believe they missed that’.”
Amid growing preparations for a possible war within six weeks:
The strength of Labour opposition to Tony Blair’s handling of the crisis was confirmed by a Sunday Times poll of constituency chairmen which found that 40% were not convinced by his case for war.
Powell will draw on the NSA intercepts, British intelligence and satellite photographs of mobile biological weapons laboratories when he addresses the security council on Wednesday.
He is expected to argue that not only is Iraq in “material breach” of UN resolution 1441 on disarmament, but that further inspections may be useless.
Washington officials indicated yesterday that they were ready to publish proof of the activities of Iraqi “deception teams” despite resistance from US intelligence chiefs reluctant to disclose the scope of their eavesdropping capabilities.
Powell is likely to produce satellite data showing alleged mobile weapons laboratories. He will also give the council “before and after” shots that confirm movement of vehicles and materials shortly before the arrival of UN inspection teams.
The British dossier says Saddam’s Mukhabarat intelligence has bugged inspectors’ telephone calls and placed spy cameras in their conference rooms. It says documents, equipment and materials relating to the Iraqi weapons programme are being hidden in homes and university facilities.
American and British intelligence have also compiled further evidence of a disputed link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. They claim senior members of Al-Qaeda, including an aide to Bin Laden and an organiser of the September 11 hijackings, attended a terror camp in Iraq.
The men are said to have been among Islamic fighters who trained at the Al-Rashadiya camp near Baghdad as members of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Syrian group Saddam encouraged in the 1980s.
Washington is also likely to highlight concerns about Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born supporter of Bin Laden who visited Ansar Al-Islam last year after medical treatment in Baghdad.
Zarqawi, who has been linked to the murder of an American diplomat in Jordan last October and to the recent ricin plot in London, is alleged to have helped Ansar to experiment with chemical weapons.
Yesterday Kurdish soldiers fighting Ansar in northern Iraq claimed that the group had used a 120mm mortar round containing chemicals, possibly mustard gas from its garlic smell, last Thursday.
Blair faces a grilling in the Commons tomorrow from Labour MPs who are sceptical of attempts to link Saddam to Bin Laden.
At a meeting at Chequers with Tony Blair yesterday, Thabo Mbeki, the South African president, told the prime minister that he would be sending his foreign minister within the next two weeks to urge Saddam to comply with the weapons inspectors.
The Sunday Times poll of Labour chairmen found 48% said only firm evidence of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons would convince them that military action was an option. The same number thought Bush would attack Iraq whatever the UN found and 50% did not want Blair to commit British troops to an invasion.
Of 30 Labour MPs polled, nearly half said they had not yet been convinced that Saddam was sufficiently dangerous to justify military action.
Blair will now play a leading role in attempts to obtain a second UN resolution.
Regards, Ivan
I don't know if "it" is the right way to phrase that. I think there is probably a whole bunch of "it"s.
Everyone is looking for a one big "it" regardless of all the "it"s already out there.
The one "it" theory is kind of like reading one verse in the Bible then trying to explain the whole gospel by it.
BTW if they release this it will make Saddam and the UN think of new ways to deny what is going on.
The Democrats have proven that they will go to almost any lenghts to (1)Discredit Bush and (2) stop us from attacking Iraq.
In a way I hope he makes that charge.....I think the country would rise up and draw and quarter him. We would then be rid of at least one American Weasel.
For the Labor Party would that NOT be a record?
What's his support amongst the conservatives? Has it not been on the rise?
Regarding the war on Iraq, would not the conservatives be MORE suportive of him than are the labor MPs?
Most Tories I know are saying that Saddam should have been killed yesterday.
Regards, Ivan
Mark
I hope with all my heart that when it's election time, the opponents to these demonRAT Ba$tards will run the footage of them saying that they don't trust President Bush while they were guests of Saddam over and over again!
Mark
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