Proof of WMDs Posted on Thursday, September 23, 2004 Since fuzzyvet fears me enough to block me from his thread, I will have to post the proof that he demands to have and denies exists in this thread. Fuzzyhead writes: ...there must have been WMD. But there weren't.... Yeah - we have heard this dribble before. OK here we go... First, I have to ask - Since the whole world recognizes Husseins use of WMD against his own people, are we left to assume that he used every drop of it at hat time and has never produced or secured any more? No one believed that then and no one should believe it now. Anyway - here are your details: This page from the CIA detailing -Key Judgements: Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs -Discussion: Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs -UN Security Council Resolutions and Provisions for Inspections and Monitoring: Theory and Practice -Nuclear Weapons Program -Chemical Warfare Programs -Biological Warfare Program -Ballistic Missile Program -Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Program and Other Aircraft -Procurement in Support of WMD Programs Link= Link This site has pictures of WMD being used in Iraq by Hussein on his own people. It has great text but the pictures make it not for the feint of heart: Link In Iraq's own report to the UN on their weapons, they admit to having "8,500 liters of anthrax" and a 'growth media he imported to grow more that can produce 25,000 liters' Where is it? Here is a quote from a real Hussein insider: In the two decades before the Gulf War, I played a role in Iraq's efforts to acquire major technologies from friendly states. In 1974, I headed an Iraqi delegation to France to purchase a nuclear reactor. It was a 40-megawatt research reactor that our sources in the IAEA told us should cost no more than $50 million. But the French deal ended up costing Baghdad more than $200 million. The French-controlled Habbania Resort project cost Baghdad a whopping $750 million, and with the same huge profit margin. With these kinds of deals coming their way, is it any surprise that the French are so desperate to save Saddam's regime? Germany was the hub of Iraq's military purchases in the 1980s. Our commercial attaché, Ali Abdul Mutalib, was allocated billions of dollars to spend each year on German military industry imports. These imports included many proscribed technologies with the German government looking the other way. In 1989, German engineer Karl Schaab sold us classified technology to build and operate the centrifuges we needed for our uranium-enrichment program. German authorities have since found Mr. Schaab guilty of selling nuclear secrets, but because the technology was considered "dual use" he was fined only $32,000 and given five years probation. Meanwhile, other German firms have provided Iraq with the technology it needs to make missile parts. Mr. Blix's recent finding that Iraq is trying to enlarge the diameter of its missiles to a size capable of delivering nuclear weapons would not be feasible without this technology transfer. Russia has long been a major supplier of conventional armaments to Iraq--yet again at exorbitant prices. Even the Kalashnikov rifles used by the Iraqi forces are sold to Iraq at several times the price of comparable guns sold by other suppliers. Saddam's policy of squandering Iraq's resources by paying outrageous prices to friendly states seems to be paying off. The irresponsibility and lack of morality these states are displaying in trying to keep the world's worst butcher in power is perhaps indicative of a new world order. It is a world of winks and nods to emerging rogue states--for a price. It remains for the U.S. and its allies to institute an opposing order in which no price is high enough for dictators like Saddam to thrive. Mr. Hamza, a former director of Iraq's nuclear-weapons program, is the co-author of "Saddam's Bombmaker: The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda" (Scribner, 2000). And some more discoveries by US forces: Iraqi Nuke Complex Friday, April 11, 2003 BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. Marines may have found weapons-grade plutonium in a massive underground facility discovered beneath Iraq's Al Tuwaitha nuclear complex, Fox News confirmed Friday. Coalition forces are investigating a stash of radioactive material found at the site south of Baghdad, an embedded reporter, Carl Prine of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, first told Fox News on Thursday....The discovery of the underground labyrinth of labs and warehouses was unexpected, Fox News has confirmed, and forces in the area are testing a variety of things to best determine the significance of the find.So far, Marine nuclear and intelligence experts have found 14 buildings that have high levels of radiation, Prine reported Thursday.His report noted that some of the tests have found nuclear residue too deadly for human contact.The Marine radiation detectors go "off the charts" a few hundred meters outside the nuclear compound, where locals say "missile water" is stored in enormous caverns, reported Prine, who is embedded with the U.S. 1st Marine Division."It's amazing," Chief Warrant Officer Darrin Flick, the battalion's nuclear, biological and chemical warfare specialist told the newspaper. "I went to the off-site storage buildings, and the rad detector went off the charts. Then I opened the steel door, and there were all these drums, many, many drums, of highly radioactive material."Former Iraqi scientist Gazi George told Fox News Friday that the material "definitely" could have been planned for use in nuclear weapons or dirty bombs."The high levels of radiation suggest it's a high-level nuclear waste that was stored underground, trying to hide it for the process of repurposing it for the future … or just to make dirty bombs out of the material that's down there," George said."If the material has not been disclosed by Iraqis to the United Nations …[then] definitely this material was hidden there to use it as a source for extracting plutonium chemically and using it in dirty bombs."Saddam always tried to hide ... uranium or other nuclear fuels so we could use them in the future for weapons of mass destruction."George said it's important the coalition find Iraqi scientists who know about these weapons so they can hunt down the harmful material and destroy it."I think this demonstrates the failure of the U.N. weapons inspections and demonstrates that our guys are going to find the weapons of mass destruction."This underground discovery could still test to be perfectly legitimate and offer no proof of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. The CIA encouraged international inspectors in the fall of 2002 to probe Al Tuwaitha for weapons of mass destruction, and the inspectors came away empty-handed."They went through that site multiple times, but did they go underground? I never heard anything about that," physicist David Albright, a former IAEA Action Team inspector in Iraq from 1992 to 1997, told the Tribune-Review."The Marines should be particularly careful because of those high readings," he told the paper. "Three hours at levels like that and people begin to vomit. That leads me to wonder, if the readings are accurate, whether radioactive material was deliberately left there to expose people to dangerous levels."You couldn't do scientific work in levels like that. You would die."Capt. John Seegar, a combat engineer commander from Houston, is currently running the operation in Al Tuwaitha. "I've never seen anything like it, ever," he told the Tribune-Review. "How did the world miss all of this? Why couldn't they see what was happening here?"The Army Times reported that troops from the 326th Engineer Battalion and chemical specialists on Wednesday found steel containers full of $1 million of sophisticated lab equipment near the Karbala Chemical Company.The equipment included a machine used to analyze chemical compounds and a 750-pound centrifugal pump that was made in Finland, shipped to a Jordan company and ended up in Iraq. One bin was filled with documents on Baath Party letterhead.Chemical protective mask filters were on the ground and hand grenades and loose ammunition were also in the facility.The Mobile Exploitation Team -- made up of civilians and military chemical experts -- went to the scene Thursday and closed off the area."This is significant," Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Richard Gonzales, head of the team, told the Army Times. "We would not be here if it was inconsequential."U.N. weapons inspectors spent five hours at an adjacent munitions factory on Feb. 23.The Karbala Chemical Plant supposedly was bombed during the first Gulf War, but there are signs that an active lab there was recently used. And here is an article I wish I was elloquent enugh to have written myself : Proof Positive...Mark Alexander (archive)May 21, 2004As good logicians are wont to note, the existence of a thing is indisputable proof of its possibility. That said, a whole lot of people have a whole lot of 'splaining to do about their categorical claims that deposed Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein didn't have weapons of mass destruction and didn't collude with Jihadi terrorists. Not that we expect them to 'fess up for being wrong -- being anti-American means never having to say you're sorry.For, lo, we now have demonstrable evidence of Jihadi terrorists and WMD in Iraq. We now have confirmation of the very confluence that President Bush cited a half year before hostilities commenced as the "gravest danger in the war on terror" -- which formed the rationale for taking the war with Jihadistan into Iraq. A 155-millimeter howitzer shell, part of an improvised explosive device, exploded Saturday in Iraq. The IED contained 3 to 4 liters of sarin gas, a deadly nerve agent; two U.S. soldiers were exposed while attempting to disarm the bomb and were treated. An IED discovered a couple of weeks ago was confirmed to contain mustard gas. A "perfume factory" also recently exploded, apparently rigged to self-destruct around unauthorized entrants. Other "dual use" chemicals have been uncovered suspiciously near military facilities -- calling into serious question whether these were dedicated to peaceful civilian purposes only. Of course, these small quantities of WMD constitute only what Saddam's minions failed to hide or export to Syria prior to the Allied invasion. In October 2002, the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraqi WMD estimated that Saddam had from 100 to 500 metric tons of chemical warfare agents. Our staff analysts remain convinced that unknown quantities of chemical and biological WMD, and components of Saddam's nuclear WMD, were spirited out of Iraq well in advance of the anticipated Allied invasion. This belief is consistent with our analysis in October of 2002 that the UN Security Council's foot-dragging provided a large window for Saddam to export some of his biological and nuclear WMD. At that time, this column reported that it would be unlikely Allied Forces would discover Iraq's WMD stores in Iraq, noting, "There are substantial intelligence estimates that Iraq shipped some or all of its biological stockpiles and nuclear WMD components through Syria to Lebanon's heavily fortified Bekaa Valley."Indeed, as reported here three weeks ago, some of the chemical WMD discovered during the thwarting of a planned al-Qa'ida attack in Jordan appear to have come from Syria. But given that Syria does not possess the technology to produce such chemicals, one can reasonably conclude (unless you are the Demo-nominee for president) that this cache was compliments of Iraq, by way of Syria. So, that mindless Left-mantra, "Saddam didn't have WMD," has, again, been thoroughly discredited. More to the point, though, if these WMD escaped detection and were used against coalition troops, isn't it very likely there are more?And last week the world witnessed a masked man, self-identified in a videotape and now confirmed to be al-Qa'ida terror chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, butchering an American citizen (see the article "Scripting the execution of Nicholas Berg"). This Jihadi leader -- in Iraq -- intended the propaganda snuff film to rally potential allies to jihad, to cow Iraqi fence-sitters into deeper neutrality, and to demoralize those opposing Jihadi objectives. Like the WMD discovered this week, al-Zarqawi was in Iraq long before coalition forces launched Operation Iraqi Freedom. In his State of the Union Address on September 28, 2003, the President identified "the gravest danger facing America and the world" as "outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons" and "could also give or sell those weapons to terrorist allies, who would use them without the least hesitation."President Bush made the case: "Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction. But why? The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate, or attack. ... Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and abets terrorists, including members of al-Qa'ida. Secretly, without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own."And as for another Left-chant, "The threat wasn't imminent," the President explicitly argued that intelligence couldn't guarantee such finely calibrated assessments: "Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late."This week Lt. Gen. Patrick Hughes (Ret.), now with the Department of Homeland Security, offered the analysis that the Jihadis would prefer to attack here within the U.S. using chemical or biological weapons, or possibly a "dirty bomb" laced with nuclear contaminants. He specifically mentioned anthrax, as it was successfully used just after the 9/11 assaults, and ricin, planned for use by terror suspects picked up in other locales.As far as apologies owed, you may recall the screed mere days ago of Los Angeles Times Editor John Carroll, who disdainfully dismissed non-Leftmedia types as "pseudo-journalists." Carroll stated, "You may be familiar with a study published last October on the public misconceptions about the war in Iraq. One of those misconceptions was that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction had been found. Another was that links had been proven between Iraq and al-Qa'ida." For Mr. Carroll's edification: When WMD explode, they most definitely become found. And when al-Qa'ida videotape themselves in Iraq claiming to be at the essential battleground, they most definitely prove a link. 3 great quotes on the topic - I stumbled accross them and wanted to share: "You would have thought that the discovery of an actual weapon of mass destruction in Iraq would be big news, especially since it was aimed at American soldiers. But apparently not in the eyes of most U.S. newspaper editors and network television producers, who chose largely to ignore one of the major stories coming out of Iraq this week." --Linda Chavez On cross-examination... "In discrediting the war, the Democrats have pushed the idea that neither dangerous weapons nor terrorist networks existed in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. How do they explain that terrorists Hussein harbored are beheading American civilians and trying to kill American soldiers with poisons he spread?" --George Neumayr Open query... "But I do wonder, did they [conservatives now going weak in the knees over Iraq] ever really think America could transform the Middle East with fewer than 750 American deaths? Did they really think the elites in the chattering classes would sit back passively and be proven wrong again by George Bush, just like they were proven wrong by Ronald Reagan in the Cold War? And did they really think America could bring freedom to the most tyrannical country in the world on the cheap? I hope not, because this war is not about saving American lives or Iraqi lives overseas. This war on terrorism is about saving American lives at home in this war on terror. We've got to win this war, liberate Iraq from terror, and make the Middle East and the world unsafe for terrorists wherever they may roam." --Joe Scarborough And if you prefer ultra liberal - here is one from NPR Link Yes, some of this stuff makes the news. But many will not believe because they....rather, WE are bombarded with thos quote: There are no WMDs in Iraq. The reason is because they say so. As has been proven in the past, if you just say the same lie over and over and get enough people doing it, then it becomes the truth. Not that it matters to so many who just want something to hang thier hats on. Just one point that they can cling to and not let go of. It is a kind of denial. Look at the pictures. There is your proof. Oh there is no doubt that people will try to turn this all around on me, try to poke holes in one or 2 points, call me names... yeah - I expect it. If you are in doubt just check the pictures and ask yourself: After gassing all these people and putting thousands into mass graves with them, did Hussein just make the WMDs and corresponding manufacturing programs for WMDs just vannish from existence? A bit on mass graves, "Over 250 sites have been reported, of which approximately 40 have been confirmed to date. Over one million Iraqis are believed to be missing in Iraq as a result of executions, wars and defections, of whom hundreds of thousands are thought to be in mass graves." from The Coalition Provisional Authority and the interim Iraqi Human Rights Ministry. There are multiple types of physical evidence cited above as well as common sense and relevant testimonials. Yes one person can say, "There are none because I have not seen them." OK but that does not mean they are not there. They are there and we find more all the time. Oh and by the way, don't look for a Bin Laden capture for your October Surprise - it will be more WMD stockpiles. I'd bet money on it. Republicans are good at letting their opponents dig themselves a deep hole and wed themselves to an idea right before the rug is pulled out from under them. The clamour, "No WMDs" will be met with a bunch of video footage showing WMDs. There is already enough film out there to put together a nice Moore-esque montage but I think it will come in the form of new discoveries. This issue will be hit hard and fast just a few weeks before election day.