Lebell

More evidence is coming to light that maybe, just MAYBE, Saddam was in violation of the UN sanctions after all. This is on top of earlier reports that engines with increased radiation counts have been found recently in scrap yards in Jordan.


Of course, some people have repeated "BOOOOOOOSH LIEEEEED!!" so many times, I'm sure this won't make an impression on them.

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http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news...U&refer=europe

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Iraqi Missile Engines Found in Netherlands, UN Inspectors Say

June 7 (Bloomberg) -- Two engines from Iraqi surface-to-air missiles, including one from an Al Samoud 2 missile banned by the United Nations, have turned up in a scrap yard in the Netherlands, according to UN arms inspectors.

Representatives of the unidentified scrap yard said at least five and as many as 12 similar engines were sent to the Rotterdam location earlier this year, and more may have passed through, according to a report dated May 28 from the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission.

Unmovic, which ran inspections in Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion, said some of the materials may have been taken out of Iraq by looters and sold as scrap. Satellite photos show Iraqi sites subject to international monitoring that have been cleaned out or destroyed, according to the report.

The UN inspectors said the discovery shows the difficulty of accounting for how many banned missiles the regime of Saddam Hussein possessed before he was overthrown in a U.S.-led invasion last year. The U.S.'s Iraq Survey Group is hunting for banned arms in Iraq in the absence of the UN team.

Workers at the scrap yard in the Dutch port said the site received other items made of stainless steel and other metals bearing the inscription ``Iraq'' or ``Baghdad'' shipped beginning in November 2003. Some of the items analyzed by the Unmovic team were composed of inconel and titanium, materials that had both civilian and military uses.

Inconel is a corrosion-resistant alloy containing nickel, chromium and iron, according to the Web site of the U.S. government's Argonne National Laboratory.

The yard deals in ``high-quality stainless steel,'' and the company involved is cooperating with the investigation, the UN report said.

Radiation Probed

The engines came to light after a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency visited the yard to look into what the UN report described as ``increased radiation readings.'' The report doesn't elaborate on the radiation.

The serial number on one missile examined in Rotterdam was found in a UN database, indicating it came from a missile that had been tagged by inspectors and not declared as having been fired.

``A lot of stuff was looted from within the country,'' John Isaacs, the senior policy director at the Washington-based Center for Arms Control, said in an interview. At least some of the ordnance used to attack the U.S.-led coalition or make homemade roadside bombs came from Iraqi stockpiles, he said.

If militants seized a missile with a range of even a few hundred miles, a city could be attacked without the contraband even having to be smuggled into the area, according to Isaacs.

U.S. President George W. Bush invaded Iraq under the justification that Hussein's regime defied the demands of the UN Security Council for 12 years by refusing to disarm and allow complete and unobstructed arms inspections. Bush asserted that the possibility that chemical, biological or nuclear weapons could be handed off to international terrorists such as al-Qaeda posed too grave a threat to overlook.

While no banned arms caches have yet been found, the Bush administration said it is too early to call off the search.

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"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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onetime2

Remember though, that those missiles weren't in violation of UN rules (at least according to Saddam's government). His denial was one of the key factors in events leading up to the war but nobody wants to remember that.

We (the US and the UN) went back and forth with them for months over the fact that the range on these missiles was greater than the allowable range under UN sanctions which only allowed for defensive weapons. Finally, when it was clear there was little or no time left, he admitted to their violation and agreed to destroy them.

Such was the history of the Hussein regime and its adherence to the UN sanctions. Deny, deny, deny until the proof is so overwhelming and the deadline passes then say "but it will take us many months to get rid of them all so give us more time".

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Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

prb

So..........we invaded Iraq when we should have been invading the Netherlands?

/Otherwise, no impression made.

matthew330

"U.S. President George W. Bush invaded Iraq under the justification that Hussein's regime defied the demands of the UN Security Council for 12 years by refusing to disarm and allow complete and unobstructed arms inspections. Bush asserted that the possibility that chemical, biological or nuclear weapons could be handed off to international terrorists such as al-Qaeda posed too grave a threat to overlook."

This is such a simple idea to comprehend, why do people have so much trouble remembering it.

Tomservo

For Christ's sake, people.

When will you get over the retarded WMD claims? Who gives a rat's ass if Saddam had a giant board with a nail in it?!? When it came time to *launch missiles* and *use germ warfare* Saddam didn't do it! If he truly was the most dangerous man in the world, why isn't Baghdad floating in sarin gas by now? Why isn't Iran pockmarked with Iraqi missiles? Hell, why isn't ISRAEL? Saddam isn't in power anymore. What's done is done. If Saddam was such a threat to everyone around him, truly we would've been able to judge that by counting the bodies.

Ironically, we did count lots of bodies from the Saudi attackers on 9/11... but they're perfectly fine guys. Nice Saudis!

Lebell

Maybe when you get over the retarded "he was not a danger" claims.

He has a proven track record of attacking other countries and citizens within his own country.

He has a proven track record of pursuing nuclear and chemical weapons.

He has a proven track record of hiding weapons, including sending them to other countries.

He has a proven track record of obstructing UN inspections.


But hey, maybe your right.

Maybe we should believe him this time.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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Superbelt

Saddam's track record of aggression was
1. Attack Iran behind our full support.
2. Attack Kuwait (who was drilling for oil inside the Iraqi borders and basically saying to Saddam "Tough shit, American will be on our side") But only attacking after garnering our unconcerned approval.
(Which was of course rescinded two days after the invasion started)

Lebell

I seem to remember things a little bit differently.

1) Iraq was initially supported as a balance to the radical regime in Iran (remember the hostage crisis? I do.). But there we NO support for him starting a war, nor was there support for him gassing the Kurds.

2) SINCE WHEN did we give "unconcerned approval"???

Face it, Saddam MISJUDGED what we would do, but YOU WANT TO BLAME US FOR HIS INVASION.

Ok, time for me to back away from this one.

Adios.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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Tomservo

April Glaspie was at the heart of the "approval" to invade Kuwait:

It is possible to ague, however (and many have done so), that Glaspie's statements that "We have no opinion on your Arab - Arab conflicts" and that "the Kuwait issue is not associated with America" were interpreted by Saddam as giving tacit approval of his annexation of Kuwait.

http://www.fact-index.com/a/ap/april_glaspie.html

Glaspie's comments have been discussed at length by everyone in the political realm. Regardless of whether her intention was to give the "okay", she didn't seem to be discouraging the border dispute by any accounts.

"He has a proven track record of attacking other countries and citizens within his own country."

Attacking a country (Kuwait) with a border dispute... funny, I seem to recall nearly all of Europe AND the USA being involved in border disputes. Attacking Iran..with our help?

"He has a proven track record of pursuing nuclear and chemical weapons."

We have a proven track record of producing nuclear and chemical weapons, and or USING atomic bombs and low-grade chemical weapons.

"He has a proven track record of hiding weapons, including sending them to other countries."

We have a proven track record of hiding weapon development, including the aforementioned atomic bomb.

"He has a proven track record of obstructing UN inspections."

We have a proven track record of ignoring the UN and starting a war. He has a proven track record of ignoring the UN, and... ? Doing nothing with the weapons that may or may not exist in a scrap heap in Europe?

You cannot point the long finger at Saddam without first realizing that WE are guilty of the very "evil deeds" he's committed. The dude's a scumbag, sure, but if he wanted to drop bioweapons on his people, Iran, whatever, he had an opportuniry to do it when he was certainly defeated in war. The fact that he didn't even attempt to suggests that either the capability or the intent weren't present.

I don't dispute that America is, at heart, the "good guy". But we cannot expect the rest of the world to ignore that we are the major military superpower, we HAVE dropped atomic bombs, we HAVE ignored the UN and invaded a country who was NOT at war with anyone, and we continue to spend massive amounts of money on upgraded our military.

This is ignoring the Saddam-a Queda "connections", the prisoner abuse, the no-bid contracts, and other policies which the rest of the world may not be too crazy about.

This is a very simple argument. If Saddam wasn't willing to use the WMDs and chemical weapons when he was being forcibly ousted in WAR with his mortal enemy, WHEN exactly do you suppose he would? When would YOU?

filtherton

Now that they claim to have found wmd's it is all right to trust u.n. weapon inspectors again. Interesting. I remember when hans blix was a crackpot because he said that there weren't any.

Anyways, a few engines do not a wmd cache make. We don't really know what the story is on these missile parts. We just know that they were sold as scrap and came from iraq. You may think i'm reaching, but it seems like a few engines are far from a valid justification for war. Anyone else is reaching if they think a few engines sold as scrap are a solid affirmation of the existence of viable wmd's aimed at american interests.

silent_jay

The US will keep riding the fence on the UN and WMD forever.

Blix is a fool, oops now he's smart. The UN doesn't know what to do, can you guys help us now we messed up.

The American Government made this mess let them deal with it.

The only people I feel bad for are the soldiers on both sides (Coalition and Iraqi), and the civillians of Iraq who were promised a better country that will never come.

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Absence makes the heart grow fonder

Superbelt

Tomservo: Thanks, That's what I would have posted about Glaspie had I got here first.

hannukah harry

word. and their families.

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shabbat shalom, mother fucker! - the hebrew hammer

silent_jay

Very true, sorry to the families that I forgot to mention, your sons and daughters will never be forgotten

__________________
Absence makes the heart grow fonder

Potatoman

I think the US and UK government will never admit that they got it wrong with the weapons of mass destruction and as a result will 'continue the search' indefinately even though they realise there aren't any hidden labs or missile silos.

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Hey, Kids, always recycle.......TO THE EXTREME!!!

onetime2

More engines found in Jordan as well. I think the point in all this is that pretty big things left Iraq with no one knowing about it. That certainly lends more credibility to the possibility that wmds or the means to make them could have been smuggled out of the country with no one being the wiser. Those who claim that this is absolutely what happened are no more right than those in denial over the fact that it's a distinct possibility. I am still a firm believer in not taking chances when it comes to wmd programs or weapons. Assume the worst and hope for the best. But hey, to each his/her own.

__________________
Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

Dragonlich

Great, I *am* in the friggin' Netherlands, and I have to learn about this on this website...

Well, it does prove one thing: we Dutch will buy and sell *anything* if it gets us a profit.

hammer4all

Billy Ocean

UN inspectors: Saddam shipped out WMD before war and after



SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Friday, June 11, 2004
The United Nations has determined that Saddam Hussein shipped weapons of mass destruction components as well as medium-range ballistic missiles before, during and after the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 2003.

The UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission briefed the Security Council on new findings that could help trace the whereabouts of Saddam's missile and WMD program.

The briefing contained satellite photographs that demonstrated the speed with which Saddam dismantled his missile and WMD sites before and during the war. Council members were shown photographs of a ballistic missile site outside Baghdad in May 2003, and then saw a satellite image of the same location in February 2004, in which facilities had disappeared.


UNMOVIC acting executive chairman Demetrius Perricos told the council on June 9 that "the only controls at the borders are for the weight of the scrap metal, and to check whether there are any explosive or radioactive materials within the scrap," Middle East Newsline reported.
"It's being exported," Perricos said after the briefing. "It's being traded out. And there is a large variety of scrap metal from very new to very old, and slowly, it seems the country is depleted of metal."

"The removal of these materials from Iraq raises concerns with regard to proliferation risks," Perricos told the council. Perricos also reported that inspectors found Iraqi WMD and missile components shipped abroad that still contained UN inspection tags.

He said the Iraqi facilities were dismantled and sent both to Europe and around the Middle East. at the rate of about 1,000 tons of metal a month. Destionations included Jordan, the Netherlands and Turkey.

The Baghdad missile site contained a range of WMD and dual-use components, UN officials said. They included missile components, reactor vessel and fermenters – the latter required for the production of chemical and biological warheads.

"It raises the question of what happened to the dual-use equipment, where is it now and what is it being used for," Ewen Buchanan, Perricos's spokesman, said. "You can make all kinds of pharmaceutical and medicinal products with a fermenter. You can also use it to breed anthrax."

The UNMOVIC report said Iraqi missiles were dismantled and exported to such countries as Jordan, the Netherlands and Turkey. In the Dutch city of Rotterdam, an SA-2 surface-to-air missile, one of at least 12, was discovered in a junk yard, replete with UN tags. In Jordan, UN inspectors found 20 SA-2 engines as well as components for solid-fuel for missiles.

"The problem for us is that we don't know what may have passed through these yards and other yards elsewhere," Buchanan said. "We can't really assess the significance and don't know the full extent of activity that could be going on there or with others of Iraq's neighbors."

UN inspectors have assessed that the SA-2 and the short-range Al Samoud surface-to-surface missile were shipped abroad by agents of the Saddam regime. Buchanan said UNMOVIC plans to inspect other sites, including in Turkey.

In April, International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Mohammed El Baradei said material from Iraqi nuclear facilities were being smuggled out of the country.

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtri...reaking_1.html

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"To live outside the law you must be honest." - Bob Dylan

Billy Ocean

A few months ago I was reading people saying that Bin Laden was cought already and that GW would make it public around the time of the elections, but my suggestion is that we are more likley to see WMD around the time of the elections then Bin Laden (maybe even earlier). I beleive some of the WMD technology was smuggled to Syria, in fact I think we saw some of them turn up during the AlQueda chem-bomb plot in Jordan (which featured sophisticate use of chemical weapons and originated in Syria) which was meant to kill 80,000 people and destroy the government of Jordan. This story will be interesting to follow and the fact these statements are coming from the UN gives them widespread credability (although not in my eyes)... or at least it should give them wide spread credabilty because most of the anti-war crowd was adamant about supporting the UN inspectors and the process they laid out.

__________________
"To live outside the law you must be honest." - Bob Dylan

Billy Ocean

The saddest part about it to me is that he was the worst to his own people. They counted bodies of the people around Saddam alright... thousands and thousands of bodies in mass graves systematically killed and disposed of with no respect to life. Not to mention the Kurds, Iranians, and Kuwaites.

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"To live outside the law you must be honest." - Bob Dylan

Billy Ocean

It's okay to trust the UN inspectors now because there are no restraints on their inspections now. Hans Blix is a crackpot and #1 he isn't involved in these inspections and #2 he has openly admitted to being duped by Saddam's regime. " As director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 1981 to 1997, he was in charge of overseeing inspections of the country's nuclear programme.

During that time, the Iraqis managed to hide an advanced nuclear weapons development programme from the IAEA.

It was only discovered after the Gulf War in 1991."


BLix was probably the worst pick possible.

__________________
"To live outside the law you must be honest." - Bob Dylan