Photos Prove Iraq Violated U.N. Weapons Ban

[trapper914]

A right wing co-worker directed me to this tonight. I'm quite dismissive of NewsMax, but I wanted to get your thoughts.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/10/22/154815.shtml

NewsMax has obtained exclusive photographs proving that Iraq violated a U.N. Security Council ban on importing weapons. The photographs show a wide variety of imported weapons with production dates as recent as 2001.

A U.S. military inspection team that visited an Iraqi air force munitions site in late September 2003 took the photographs. The site, located in the Suni triangle near Baghdad, has at least 13 concrete bunkers filled with missiles, bombs and bomb-fusing devices.

U.S. military teams uncovered several examples of U.N. violations, including a number of French bomb fuses with a production date of "2001-Sep-5."

Hardly a smoking gun, and I'm suspicious when it's a "NewsMax Exclusive." Whaddya think?

[Julien Sorel]

1. WMDs? No? Then I don't care.

[shockingelk]

28. neither would the UN

these are not proscribed weapons. Weapons that were proscribed weapons and activities:

all nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons research
all chemical weapons and chemical weapons research
all biological weapons and biological weapons research
missiles or UAVs with a range of over 150 Kilometers

[Mountainman]

2. Newsmax = right wing propaganda

I don't trust a thing that Newsmax puts out. It is worse than Faux news.

[leftchick]

3. yawn....

as credible as faux news.....

[frylock]

4. 1. where are the photos?

2. How were these conventional weapons a threat to the safety of US citizens.

3. Remind RW co-worker that the great and noble state of Israel is in violation of 30+ UN Security Council resolutions. When do we start bombing them?

[trapper914]

10. There's a photo on NewsMax's home page

Sorry...I forgot it wasn't with the text.

And yes, I've reminded those who will listen that Israel is in violation of UN resolutions, but as you might imagine, UN resolutions are only important when they enforce the Bush agenda. When they don't, the UN is just an "anti-Israel,irrelevant debating society."

[mhr]

5. Conventional Weapons, Not WMDs

Still no justification for invasion without UN approval.

These folks are grasping at straws.

With the help of media, it will work.

[Catholic Sensation]

6. I equate NewsMax with Weekly World News

I think I saw something on there like "Bat Boy Gives Illegal Campaign Contribution to John Kerry, while Face of Satan Shows Up in Smoke of Exhaust of John Kerry's Car When Accelerating"

[snippy]

7. So why did the Bush administration lie about the intelligence reports?

[ixion]

8. Newsmax exclusive? BAH!

Hardly a credible source.

[rooboy]

9. Tell NewsMax that the invasion is already over...

and that they are looking desperate to vindicate themselves with this after-the-fact propaganda.

[lcordero]

11. newsmax is garbage

Fraud was admitted the second the UN Inspection teams were barred from coming back into the country.

He has no case.

[punpirate]

12. Under the UN resolution...

... Iraq could continue to arm itself with conventional weapons, but the US had issued an embargo which other countries agreed to abide by, and France was one of the countries agreeing to that embargo. I don't think conventional weapons fall under the category of violation of the UN resolution--just the embargo. Could be mistaken, but I don't think it's germane. The UN resolution covered weapons that could be used on neighboring countries from within Iraq's borders, hence the limitation on Scuds and on the range of their new al-Hussein ballistic missile.

Polish troops also found French rockets supposedly built during that embargo, and that turned out not to be the case, so....

[peterh]

13. I believe this was in the “progress report” and….

There was some figure pointing…see…see…there…violations….and everyone kinda looked at each other and asked….uhhh…got anything else….maybe something that’s a little more touchy..feely….

This is nothing more than rehashed bullshit geared for one purpose only….keep saying it and say it often…

[bowens43]

14. Translation:

Still no WMD. Still no imminent threat.

[Spazito]

15. I believe these were the "smoking gun" stuff the Polish found and...

ended up having to apologize to the French for being WRONG!

[Cat Atomic]

16. I could swear I saw pictures of this same site about a week ago

on ABC news, without the lame-ass "banned weapons" bullshit.

Either way, even these Newsmax idiots aren't claiming these are pictures of WMD. And they were willing to call a Winnebago a "chemical weapons laboratory", so...

[Champion Jack]

17. Moonie crap

[DulceDecorum]

18. Newsmax just called Powell a LIAR.

We will always try to consult with our friends in the region so that they are not surprised and do everything we can to explain the purpose of our responses. We had a good discussion, the Foreign Minister and I and the President and I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. AND FRANKLY THEY HAVE WORKED. HE HAS NOT DEVELOPED ANY SIGNIFICANT CAPABILITY WITH RESPECT TO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. HE IS UNABLE TO PROJECT CONVENTIONAL POWER AGAINST HIS NEIGHBORS.
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2001/933.htm

That stuff lying all over the desert is very probably the stuff that was dumped there by certain planes over a period of twelve years.
It is a pity judith Miller can no longer break stories of that magnitude....

On Sept. 29, a remarkable story appeared on the front page of The New York Times: "Agency Belittles Information Given by Iraqi Defectors; Pentagon Intelligence Review Says Debriefings Provided Little of Any Value." Far down in Douglas Jehl's report was this mea culpa: "The Iraqi National Congress had made some ... defectors available to ... The New York Times, which reported their allegations about ... the country's weapons programs."
This was a rather direct repudiation of numerous stories written by Judith Miller in the Times for over a year in which she relied upon the INC's Chalabi and defectors he provided for front-page exclusives on supposed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq. A second front-page Times story on Sept. 29, "New Criticism on Prewar Use of Intelligence," gave credit to The Washington Post for breaking the story about House Intelligence Committee complaints about the CIA.
http://www.mediainfo.com/editorandpublisher/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1991338
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/

YellowTimes.org) -- Belatedly, in a September 29, 2003 article in the New York Times by Douglas Jehl, the Defense Intelligence Agency has awkwardly admitted that most of the intelligence and information offered by the Iraqi National Congress (INC) for the past several years, which was provided by Iraqi defectors of questionable credibility, was of little to no value, all at a cost of $150 billion, more than 300 dead American soldiers, and at least 10,000 dead Iraqi civilians.
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1623

Agency Belittles Information Given by Iraq Defectors
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/29/international/middleeast/29DEFE.html?ex=1066968000&en=4229e54965acbab0&ei=5070

[Snazzy]

19. Weapons for the mighty Iraqi Airforce

Those are Russian air to air missles (like for a Mig)

That's a huge cluster bomb.

Forgetting all the other good reasons why this is a crock, keep in mind that the Iraqi Airforce has been a no-show since '91.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

20. Here are the two most significant photos..

The others who weapons that could easily have been bought BEFORE the first gulf war, such as AA-8 and Durandal missiles, and there is no evidence to the contrary.

The only items listed by Newsmax with a date are these:





These are obviously bomb fuses. The lower picture shows a close up of an Arabic language (in other words, not likely to have been put on by the French) label on one of the fuses.

Now, notice the boxes in the top photo have English language markings with the date of manufacture being 1987.

So what we have is a claim by Newsmax that the fuses were actually manufactured in 2001, and were placed in boxes labelled 1987. If they were trying to hide the date of manufacture, why stick the real date on the fuse?

Second, my Arabic skills are non-existant, but it is possible that what we are looking at is an inspection certificate, rather than a "packing slip" as Newsmax calls it.

In other words, these may have been in storage since 1987 and were regularly inspected to ensure their safety etc and the last inspection was in 2001.

I wonder if DU has any resident Arabic speakers who may be able to translate the label for us?

[ewagner]

21. Agree

Looks like an inventory or maintenance inspection mark put on with a "sharpie" over the original nomenclature.

[Jack Rabbit]

22. As usual . . .

. . . if there were really anything to this, the Bushies would be doing an eagle dance right now. They're not.

You're right to be skeptical of NewsMax. Next to NewsMax, Fox looks like Pulitzer Prize material.

[ogminlo]

23. Not impressed...

Even if those are nukes (they aren't, but work with me here), they are (were) still not a threat to us. Iraq had no means of delivering any kind of weapon, conventional or otherwise, to any American target. Thus, there was no imminent threat and no justification for preemptive invasion. Period. The right wing wonks are really grasping at straws and only ending up with hairs to split. LOOK! LOOK! WE FOUND SOME MORE STUFF THAT COULDN'T TOUCH US! YAAAAY!

I need to see a delivery method for any kind of weapon before I will concede the fight over we the correct against they the utterly wrong and dumb. And they are dumb, because they will cling to their unconditional love for the NeoCon leadership like a tick on an artery.

Also, NewsMax is utter garbage. This story is likely fabricated... As if any kind of story that could even remotely be applied to defend the Bush Cartel in the mainstream media would only show up on a crappy GOP newsblog. It would be all over the news for weeks, trying to brush attention away from the deluge of truly bad news from Iraq (soldiers killing themselves, not returning to service, having to ask their families for food, and most importantly, dying en masse).

[Media_Lies_Daily]

24. Conventional weapons now qualify as WMDs?? NewsMax = zero credibility.

[TacticalPeek]

25. "We have found the WMD."

And they are us.

[imax2268]

26. You know what I think...?

:puke:

[Dr Fate]

27. Why didnt Saddam use these WMD's on the troops?

And where are they now? I thought the purpose for this war was to find and secure the "tons" of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

[TrueStory]

29. Weapons of Mass-Turbation

.

[OldEuropean]

30. Cluster bombs?!

They want to declare cluster bombs as WMD/banned weapons? Duh...

Well, didn't the US used cluster bombs like candy in Afghanistan
and Iraq - in such a huge amount that the remaining bomblets are
becoming a danger for US soldiers even?