Evidence Of Iraq's Weapons Capability

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Since the Bushies can't find any WMDs in Iraq they're now concentrating on phantom potential. I seem to recall that unmanned aerial vehicle was used for reconnaissance. We have a bunch of these ourselves.


March 30, 2004

By KOMO Staff & News Services


WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. weapons hunters in Iraq have found more evidence Saddam Hussein's regime had civilian factories able to quickly produce biological and chemical weapons, the CIA's top weapons inspector told senators Tuesday. But they still have not found any weapons.

The CIA's special adviser on the weapons hunt, Charles Duelfer, said he did not know how much longer the weapons hunt might take.

"The picture is much more complicated than I anticipated going in," Duelfer said at a Capitol Hill press conference, nine weeks after he took over the weapons search.

In a closed session with the Senate Armed Services Committee, Duelfer said the Iraq Survey Group has found new evidence that Iraqi scientists flight tested long-range ballistic missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles that "easily exceeded" U.N. limits of 93 miles.

-more-

http://www.komotv.com/stories/30585.htm

[Wickerman]

1. Someone with a better DU memory than me will recall that this

has been bandied about before. It was bullshit then, and its BS now.

[Jacobin]

18. Yeah. the Drones of Death

I remember pictures of them posted here. They looked like something my 12 year old son used to build.

It's simply laughable.

[keithyboy]

2. Intent of Mass Destruction, Thoughts of Mass Destruction

but no WMDs.

[Gloria]

3. Kay left, so they put in this slug to keep this crap alive....

eom

[peterh]

4. How complicated can it be????

When the previous critter (David Kay) says there ain’t anything and the UN guys before that say they haven’t found anything and then you bring up old shit like exceeding the 93 mile limit….we saw that before the war….what was it…10 miles over I believe…how complicated is that???? Oh…I forgot…I’m an intellectual and you’re not…

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

5. I seem to recall the word Chauvinist has nothing to do with sexism.

The word comes from name Chauvin who was one of Napoleon's generals who stuck with him to the bitter end. A Chauvinist is somebody who fights for a lost cause. Like the Bushies trying to find WMDs in Iraq.

[tkmorris]

12. 10 miles over the limit

Maybe, but a few pointed out that if you put an actual WARHEAD on the thing, it wouldn't go 93 miles. Just sayin....

[ScrewyRabbit]

6. DuPont has civilian factories able to quickly

produce chemical weapons, and Archer Daniels Midland could probably produce bio weapons. So what. Guilt in a trial needs to answer motivation and opportunity as well as means. And foreign policy needs to weigh how many lives and treasure you're willing to spend to change a situation.

[daleo]

7. "The picture is much more complicated than I anticipated going in,"

Translation - "Yeah, Kay was right, planting weapons will be tougher than I thought."

[sandnsea]

8. same shit, new day

And around and around we go, where we stop, nobody knows...

[NickB79]

9. Coulda, woulda, shoulda

Didnt.

BTW, how the hell can a missile with a range of less than 100 miles be considered a ballistic missile? Doesn't ballistic imply a much longer range, like 1000+ miles? And how far could they have actually proceeded without test-launches of these missiles? We sure as hell didnt detect any long-range missile tests during the past 13 years. Same goes for the unmanned drones; the things lost the controller's signal a few miles out. No way they could be used for long-range attacks.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. "ballistic missile" definition

"a missile guided in the ascent of a high-arch trajectory and freely falling in the descent" From Merriam-Webster Online

Ballistics is the study of bullets, shells, missiles etc. that are not powered for an appreciable part of their course.

[Stockholm]

10. Ohhh please recycled inspection result warning!!

the Almoud 2 missiles was being destroyed as the US marched in. Yes you could put two rockets on them instead of one and thereby extending their reach but these were not found by Dufus & Co.

The famous UAV:s found by the UN (not Dufus) was patched up with tape! the wings made of BALSA WOOD! scaaaaary stuff - very high tech.

Next Dufus will start with the yellow cake allegations again. Bush needs to find smarter spin people, this is getting ridiculous.

[Judi Lynn]

11. Oh, nice try!

(snip)
And the survey group has new information indicating the regime engaged in ongoing research to produce chemical or biological weapons on short notice, using civilian - or "dual use" - facilities.

However, in declassified testimony shared with the media, Duelfer didn't break significant ground on the weapons hunt, saying he lacked sufficient information to draw conclusions about what Saddam had.
(snip)

(snip)
Duelfer said the survey group continues to look for weapons of mass destruction and regularly receives reports - "some quite intriguing and credible" - about possible concealed stashes buried or hidden across Iraq.
(snip)
Duelfer

[leftchick]

13. Faux will run this all day...

and the murikans will believe it is true. Again... :eyes:

[gbwarming]

15. Sen. Levin..called on the CIA to declassify Duelfer's entire status report

Same old game for the Bush* team. Cherrypick the information they want and classify the rest.
------------------------------------
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/0304/31irwmd.html
<snip>A declassified version of Duelfer's report appeared to support the contention that more time is needed before making a final determination: "Interim assessments could turn out to be misleading or wrong. I believe there is more work to be done to gather critical information about the regime, its intentions and its capabilities, and to assess that information for its meaning."
<snip>
But Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, the top Democrat on armed services, called on the CIA to declassify Duelfer's entire status report, delivered to the committee. Levin said he is "deeply troubled" that the public version leaves out information that casts doubt on the notion that Iraq had an active WMD program.
<snip>

[gbwarming]

16. LAT: Still No Leads in Iraq Arms Hunt

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-wmd31mar31,1,3049438.story

WASHINGTON — The CIA-led team searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq still isn't sure whether Saddam Hussein possessed such arms and "has yet to identify" the officials who may have run the programs, the chief U.S. weapons hunter said Tuesday.

Charles Duelfer, who took over the Iraq Survey Group in January, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in a closed session that a shortage of linguists, inexperience among staff members and other problems have hamstrung the group's search for evidence of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. The CIA released a declassified version of his prepared remarks after the session.
...
Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said he was "deeply troubled" that Duelfer's classified testimony differed significantly from the prepared remarks released to the public.

In an interview, Levin said Duelfer in his public remarks referred to concerns about Iraqi weapons that were undercut by information he disclosed in his classified comments.

"What is troubling is that in the classified documents there is information that addresses those concerns and gives a significantly different picture," Levin said.

[el_gato]

17. i got this email the other day, might be a set up

> TEHRAN (Tehran Times, Mehr News Agency)
> Over the past few days, in the wake of the bombings in
> Karbala and the ideological disputes that delayed the
> signing of Iraq's interim constitution,
> there have been reports that U.S. forces have unloaded
> a large cargo of parts for constructing long-range
> missiles and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the
> southern ports of Iraq.
>
> A reliable source from the Iraqi Governing Council,
> speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Mehr News
> Agency that U.S. forces, with the help of British
> forces stationed in southern Iraq, had made extensive
> efforts to conceal their actions.
>
> He added that the cargo was unloaded during the night
> as attention was still focused on the aftermath of the
> deadly bombings in Karbala and the signing of
> Iraq's interim constitution.
>
> The source said that in order to avoid suspicion,
> ordinary cargo ships were used to download the cargo,
> which consisted of weapons produced in the 1980s
> and1990 s.
>
> He mentioned the fact that the United States had
> facilitated Iraq's WMD program during
> the1980 - 1988Iran-Iraq and said that some of the
> weapons being downloaded are similar to those weapons,
> although international inspectors had announced Saddam
> Hussein's Baath regime had destroyed all
> its WMD.
>
> The source went on to say that the rest of the weapons
> were probably transferred in vans to an unknown
> location somewhere in the vicinity of Basra overnight.
>
> ﺃ ‚�“Most of these weapons are of Eastern
> European origin and some parts are from the former
> Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. The U.S. obtained
> them through confiscations during sales of banned arms
> over the past two decades, he said.
>
> This action comes as certain U.S. and Western
> officials have been pointing out the fact that no
> weapons of mass destruction have been discovered in
> Iraq and the issue of Saddam's trial begins
> to take center stage.
>
> In addition, former chief UN weapons inspector Hans
> Blix has emphasized that the U.S. and British
> intelligence agencies issued false reports on Iraq
> leading to the U.S. attack.
>
> Meanwhile, the suspicious death of weapons inspector
> David Kelly is also an unresolved issue in Britain.
>
> ------Occupation Forces Official Claims to Have No
> Information About Transfer of WMD to Iraq -------
>
> A security official for the coalition forces in Iraq
> said that he has not received any information about
> the unloading of weapons of mass destruction in ports
> in southern Iraq.
>
> Shane Wolf told the Mehr News Agency that the
> occupation forces have received no reports on such
> events, but said he hoped that the coalition forces
> would find the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction one
> day.
>
> Coalition forces and inspectors have so far been
> unable to find any Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
> The U.S. invaded Iraq under the pretext that Iraq
> possessed a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.
>
> Source: Tehran Times