Aide: Saddam Did Get Rid of Iraq WMD

[owillis]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030802/ap_on_re_mi_ea/saddam_s_bluff_4

"A close aide to Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) says the Iraqi dictator did in fact get rid of his weapons of mass destruction but deliberately kept the world guessing about it in an effort to divide the international community and stave off a U.S. invasion.

The strategy, which turned out to be a serious miscalculation, was designed to make the Iraqi dictator look strong in the eyes of the Arab world, while countries such as France and Russia were wary of joining an American-led attack. At the same time, Saddam retained the technical know-how and brain power to restart the programs at any time.

Both Pentagon (news - web sites) officials and weapons experts are considering this guessing-game theory as the search for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons continues. If true, it would indicate there was no imminent unconventional weapons threat from Iraq, an argument President Bush used to go to war."

[cthrumatrix]

1. So when did he get rid of them...? So Iraq told the truth...? And let's

have a few facts on where they were sent. This story this late in the occupation doesn't jive when we supposedly can see everthing with pratically everything with sattelites and intel. that we had in there several months before the invasion.

[tlb]

2. In fairness, would it jibe if Saddam is conducting disinformation

campaigns on the existence of the WMDs ? The purpose of the bluff as described here is to make the west think he DID have them.

This article suggests he played the game a little too well.

[bowens43]

3. It doesn't matter.

The bottom line is the US launched an unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation. The existence or non-existence of WMD is irrelevant. The only relevant factor is whether or not there was an imminent threat to the US. The administration has provided absolutely NO evidence that such a threat existed. Merely possessing WMD is not an imminent threat or we would be attacking Israel, France, India , Pakistan etc.

This war was NOT about WMD, it was not about the security of the US or the region. It was about oil and creating a staging ground for more US invasions in the area..

[jamesinca]

4. Even by their own admissions they can't see evrything

They say they had sattalites, they sid they had special forces in Iraq prior to the war watching the borders, they say they knew exactly where they were hiding the WMD, they say he had weapons programs, they say at the U.N. look at the photos, they are proof. Maybe he took things to the borders prior to the Special Forces arrival and sold them to people 1 barrel at a time. This of course would take several years. Unless he had a whole army of civilian vehicles moving them unsuspected. Maybe they were destroyed in the factories instead of created. Maybe Powells sattelite photos were biological agents being unloaded at factories for destruction not for distribution from the factories. One can do a lot with an eye in the sky, but you can't do everything. An inside person is an incredible assest.

[0007]

5. Many folks knew

before the Iraq attack that the WMD were not there. Scott Ritter was one.

[samsingh]

6. imagine that.

.

[KC21304]

7. So the deception was that he was trying to make everyone

believe he was lying when he said he didn't have them. My understanding is that he hasn't had them since Gulf I. I think that is what his son-in-law said when he defected, but we even twisted that around to mean the opposite to suit our purposes.

[robbedvoter]

8. Ha!Ha! "I don't have WMD" "Liar!" - and now we'll kill him!

Yeah, he sure deceived us all! The fabrication of the Niger documents was trully evil! Die, liar, die!
Aren't you feeling much safer now?

[pinniped]

9. So what does BuShit have to say about all of this?

Or his he too busy on vacation to be bothered?

[IkeWarnedUs]

10. US, UK and UN knew this all along

Two articles from late February/early March 2003 - before the war began:

The Defector's Secrets
NEWSWEEK 3/3/03 issue

Hussein Kamel, the highest-ranking Iraqi official ever to defect from Saddam Hussein’s inner circle, told CIA and British intelligence officers and U.N. inspectors in the summer of 1995 that after the gulf war, Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to deliver them.

<snip>

Kamel said Iraq had not abandoned its WMD ambitions. The stocks had been destroyed to hide the programs from the U.N. inspectors, but Iraq had retained the design and engineering details of these weapons. Kamel talked of hidden blueprints, computer disks, microfiches and even missile-warhead molds. “People who work in MIC (Iraq’s Military Industrial Commission, which oversaw the country’s WMD programs) were asked to take documents to their houses,” he said. Why preserve this technical material? Said Kamel: “It is the first step to return to production” after U.N. inspections wind down.

Kamel was interrogated in separate sessions by the CIA, Britain’s M.I.6 and a trio from the United Nations, led by the inspection team’s head, Rolf Ekeus. NEWSWEEK has obtained the notes of Kamel’s U.N. debrief, and verified that the document is authentic. NEWSWEEK has also learned that Kamel told the same story to the CIA and M.I.6. (The CIA did not respond to a request for comment.)

link: http://www.msnbc.com/news/876128.asp?0sl=-10


Allies hushed up weapons destruction
Scotsman.com (Scottish news from Scotland) 1/24/03

<snip>

Kamel’s value as an informant, however, was huge; for ten years he had run Iraq’s nuclear, chemical, biological and missile weapons programmes, as well as Iraqi efforts to keep the weapons secret.

Kamel talked to both the then UN chief inspector, Rolf Ekeus, and agents from the CIA and MI6 in Jordan. Among other revelations, he provided the first report that Iraq was developing mobile biological weapons factories - a subject on which Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, dwelt long and hard in his recent damning presentation to the UN Security Council.

But Kamel’s story that Iraq had indeed - as it has long claimed - destroyed chemical and biological stocks back in 1991 was never reported.

link: http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=230772003

[Romey]

11. Was Saddam the source of the forged documents?

Josh Marshall poses this possible scenario today.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

To me, it all still goes back to Cheney - Halliburton's two subsidiaries doing multi-billion dollar business with Saddam in Iraq up until 2000. Cheney & Libby making the personal "visits" to CIA hdqtrs regarding this so-called "intelligence".

My cynicism goes so far as to think maybe Saddam was in on the whole deal. His daughter speaking loudly about the "betrayal".

[lazarus]

12. dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=47984&mesg_id=47984