Posted on 04/01/2003 4:21:23 PM PST by mrobison
Fox News just reported that samples of suspected chemical weapons have been sent to the U. S. for analysis after coalition forces cluster-bombed an Iraqi position, then sent the Special Forces in to mop up.
Really? No more flights out of there?
Washington began pulling some 50 warplanes out of Incirlik air base in southern Turkey after it became clear that Turkey would not allow them to be used in an Iraq war. The planes had patrolled northern Iraq since after the 1991 Gulf War."The U.S.-Turkish strategic partnership ... has been severely damaged and it needs repair," said Sami Kohen, a columnist for the Milliyet newspaper.
The withdrawal of the warplanes - F-15s, F-16s, EA-6Bs and AWACs radar aircraft - had been widely expected after Turkey said the base could not be used in a war.
The withdrawals began last week and are expected to continue until later this week, Maj. Bob Thompson, a spokesman at Incirlik, said Tuesday. He would not be more specific for security reasons. Thompson said some of the aircraft would be moved to the Persian Gulf, while others would be sent to their home bases.
The 1,400 U.S. personnel who worked on the Iraq patrols will be withdrawn from the base. A similar number will remain; they are part of a permanent deployment that dates to the Cold War and whose work now includes logistics for U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
10 March 2003 Diplomatic Process Continues on Iraq Resolution, White House Says (But "it must lead to immediate disarmament of Saddam Hussein") (680) By Wendy S. Ross Washington File White House Correspondent
(SNIP)
Fleischer said the White House is aware of the discovery of Iraqi unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) by UNMOVIC -- the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission.
The U.S. is also aware of UNMOVIC's discovery of Iraqi production of munitions capable of dispensing both chemical and biological weapons, he said.
(Snip)
He said there's a chemical munition that Iraq has developed, based on South African cluster bomb technology but "modified in order to spray chemical weapons instead of operating as a cluster bomb. The inspectors have, I think, come across that in some of their inspections, and now we find there may be hundreds of these -- over a hundred of them, at least.
"So there are items being found by the inspectors that deserve the focus of the international community and should probably be discussed more and more with them up in New York. We think it is necessary for people to look at the totality of what the inspectors are presenting and what the inspectors are finding, and to look at it in some detail like this, in order to understand what's really going on."
Fleischer said given the fact that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction that are prohibited to him, "what's at stake" in the current debate at the United Nations is "what is the lesson for the next country that has weapons of mass destruction or nuclear weapons, such as Iran or North Korea, where we fear they are developing their programs to have weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons? How then does the world enforce anti-proliferation arrangements if the methods set up by the international community are not effective? And that is being tested now with the United Nations Security Council. There are issues that need to be thought through, from an international point of view."
If the United Nations does not act, he said, "there are other proliferators down the line who will celebrate the United Nations Security Council's failure to back up its own resolutions."
http://www.usembassy-israel.org.il/publish/press/2003/march/031106.html
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