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Subject: Assad’s fall could solve Iraqi weapons mystery
CJH    1/22/2012 9:47:00 PM

Assad’s fall could solve Iraqi weapons mystery

"Western and Israeli intelligence suspect that Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria also owns weaponized nerve agents. Spy satellites tracked a large number of truck convoys moving from Iraq to Syria in the weeks before the 2003 invasion, raising suspicions that some carried weapons of mass destruction. The invading Americans never found stocks of such weapons in Iraq, despite two years of searching by the Iraq Survey Group. The result spurred the political left to attack President Bush with slogans such as “Bush lied, troops died,” but nonpartisan national security figures said there was evidence that material may have been moved to Syria. There was just no way to get inside the Iranian-supported dictatorship to take a look. Zuhdi Jasser, a Syrian-American physician who co-founded the group Save Syria Now, is working to bring an elected secular government to Damascus. He said the Assad regime, which has used brutal repression to remain in power, can fall within a year if the popular uprising comes to the capital."

 
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Plutarch    CJH   5/28/2012 7:19:56 PM
You should really let this go. No one has posted on this thread in a month.
 
As to this:
 
Wrong, still. I did not put them up because of you alone. You are not the only critic of Bushes policies here.
 
Who else in this thread has posted anything remotely critical of Bush's policies on Iraq besides me? Must be all those invisible lurkers who are Bush haters who come to SP to read your posts.
 
 
 And this:
 
All I have seen from you so far concerning the article is opinion. Your opinions are no more valid than any others here. And the UN's opinions are just that.
 
There are opinions and then there are informed opinions. The UN has an informed opinion with regard to Iraq's WMDs because they were the ones who actually oversaw their destruction.  Unless you were on the weapons inspections teams someone must have given you information on Iraqi WMDs at some point, most likely via a news report or article. So where did that information come from? Probably the UN, the US Government, and ultimately Iraqi documents. How many chemical warheads did Iraq produce? How much anthrax? How many SCUD missiles did Iraq once possess?   You will find the answers to these questions and many more in UN documents.
 
The UN weapons inspections teams consisted of experts in their field in chem/bio weapons, including many Americans.  They went through Iraq fairly thoroughly and eventually they came to the reasonable conclusion that Iraq had disarmed; the same conclusion the Bush administration came to.
 
Now as to the article and its content regarding an alleged weapons transfer to Syria I have one, still unanswered, question: Per the article Syria is backed by Iran (and has been for a long time), and Iraq under Saddam was an enemy of Iran's. So why would Saddam send his strategic weapons (i.e., WMDs) to the closest ally of his worst enemy? 
 
Answer that truthfully and you will  solve the mystery of Saddam's WMDs.
 
 
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CJH    Syria?s Next Act   7/21/2012 12:04:29 PM

"With the rebels moving deeper into Damascus, and the regime’s days appearing numbered, the CIA is racing to find Syria’s chemical and biological weapons before it’s too late. "

article...

"Also unclear is what, if anything, Iraq transferred to Syria before the 2003 U.S. invasion. 'That is the wild card.'"

"DeSutter also said she would want the U.S. and international community to secure any remaining nuclear-related equipment from the al-Kibar reactor destroyed in 2007 by Israeli jets. Also unclear is what, if anything, Iraq transferred to Syria before the 2003 U.S. invasion. “That is the wild card,” said DeSutter.

Whether or not sensitive weapons technology was moved to Syria is a hotly disputed question in the intelligence community. James Clapper, now the Director of National Intelligence and formerly the director of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, said in 2003 that he believed materials had been moved out of Iraq in the months before the war and cited satellite imagery."

 
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CJH       7/21/2012 12:06:12 PM
I know I shouldn't but I just love to irritate liberals.
 
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Plutarch       7/21/2012 10:45:37 PM
Who is the liberal you are irritating? And citing an Eli Lake article isn't exactly clear evidence of anything. His article was supposition; the Assad regime hasn't fallen yet.
 
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CJH       7/22/2012 12:32:41 PM

Who is the liberal you are irritating? And citing an Eli Lake article isn't exactly clear evidence of anything. His article was supposition; the Assad regime hasn't fallen yet.

By liberal, I mean anyone who has made up their mind that there cannot possibly be Iraqi wmds in Syria and have done so in advance of there being any way to know whether there are or whether there are not. In short, I mean just about everyone who has a closed mind on the subject.
 
I think that the only clear evidence of anything here is that of an unwillingness to even allow of the possibility one could be wrong.
 
Maybe the truth will be revealed satisfactorily in the coming months.
 
I can wait.
 
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Plutarch    CJH   7/22/2012 10:06:55 PM

I don't have a closed mind on the subject, I leave open the possibility that Iraqi weapons could be found in Syria. However there has to be overwhelming evidence of such weapons, so that it overturns the current evidence that Iraq had in fact disarmed.

I have asked from the beginning what Iraqi weapons do you think are there in Syria? Are they pre-1991 stocks or post-1998 stocks? If they are pre-1991 stocks then why would Saddam wait until 2003 to move them when weapons inspections began in 1991? The weapons inspectors did not uncover anything so if Saddam had pre-1991 stocks then they were so well hidden he probably had no need to move them to Syria. Remember, he did not think the US would invade in 2003.

If these are post-1998 stocks that you think are in Syria then why have no Iraqi scientists come forward to state they were working on clandestine programs? In order for a weapons program to be viable weapons have to be produced yet not a single chemist, biologist or nuclear scientist, even years after Saddam's death-and many are now living overseas-has come forward to state they were working on a weapons program.

Then there is the case that Shiite Syria is not really an ally of Saddam's Iraq, which makes any weapons transfer even more implausible. Saddam might as well have sent them to Iran for all the good his WMDs would do him in Syria.

What you, and Smitty, are suggesting-that Iraq sent its WMDs to Syria, a strategic rival, right before the invasion that Saddam did not think would take place, but after several years and months of weapons inspections-is not quite logical. So yes I throw cold water on this kind of speculation due to the evidence already gathered. So far you haven't answered any of my questions, nor have you cited any compelling evidence that the weapons were moved, only speculation from right-wing neocon sources.

 
I am just wondering, if no traces of Iraqi WMDs or of a weapons transfer are found in Syria will you finally admit that Saddam was in fact disarmed by 1991 as all the evidence suggests? Or will you continue to mindlessly speculate about where the Russians sent the WMDs? I only followed the evidence on Iraqi WMDs which is what most reasonable people have been doing, like those noted liberals: Bush, Condi Rice, Cheney, Rumsfeld who don't speculate about Iraqi WMDs in Syria. I could be wrong sure, but it would take compelling evidence to prove it.

 

 

 
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PPR    Consider this   7/26/2012 1:37:35 AM
Absence of proof is not proof of absence.  With the evidence we have available (and very few trustworthy sources) one theory (the WMD were moved to Syria) is as plausible as the other (there were no WMD).
 
The evidence that WMD existed are as follows::
1) According to UN weapons inspector Charles Duelfer Iraq had the infrastructure in place to mass produce WMD once the sanctions were lifted.
2) Iraqi General George Sada (Deputy Chief of  Iraq's air force) reported the WMD & documents were shipped to Syria by air & truck.
3)  General Moshe Ya'alon, Israel's Chief of Staff, confirmed these truck convoys were photographed by Israel.
4) 500 tons of yellow cake were found (Yellow cake is used for nuclear reactors or nuclear bombs--Iraq's only reactor was destroyed by Israel in 1981, so you figure that one out).
5) Several hundred chemical rounds were found including mustard gas, sarin, & binary agents (binary rounds are so advanced that only three countries every possessed them: the US, the USSR, and Iraq--and the US & USSR destroyed their stockpiles, so the the binary rounds found in Iraq may have been the only ones still in existence). 
6) Wikileaks documents confirm that troops continued to find chemical round for years after the invasion as well as a chemical lab in Fallujah in 2004.
7) (This one is not so much evidence as a interesting fact.) In 2010 BO appointed Lt Gen James Clapper to be Director of National Intelligence, which was odd given that Clapper had publicly supported the notion that the WMD were shipped to Syria.  Why would BO appoint someone to such a key position if he (Clapper) had been discredited about something so important?
 
So why didn't Bush press the issue if he believed Saddam had moved his WMD to Syria?
 
1) It would have meant starting another war when we had our hands full already.
2) Syria is a peculiar case because it is one of the few countries on the planet that has not signed treaties to get rid of WMD.  They can produce/possess as many chemical/nuclear weapons as they want and we have no legal right within any treaty to stop them.  However, there is a catch-all.  Every nation has the right to self defense.  So when Israel bombed Syria's nuclear facilities (much to the relief of everyone) they acted under this right of defense.
3) It is a further peculiar case because of its long history as a Russian/Soviet client state.  It is Russia's turf and they will defend it. Historically the US has avoided invading Russian clients if Russia has troops there (which they do in Syria).
 
Given these three facts, all Bush could do was take his lumps in the press.
 
Assad will probably fall anyway, but there is no telling who will take his place: most likely a Sunni-dominated dictatorship disguised as a republic. The Sunnis liked Saddam.  They would probably cover for him if they could. But it is possible in the chaos of the collapse some Iraqi WMD will pop up (which we should be able to distinguish from Syrian WMD by similarities to those found in Iraq).  We hit an intel motherlode when the USSR fell.  The opportunity may also present itself in Syria if we have people in a position to gather up the supporting documents.
 
As for the press, rather than deny it, they will probably just ignore it because it would damage their credibility, or go with the tried and true "It was old, so it doesn't count."
 
And if I recall correctly, BO got elected on an anti-Iraq-war campaign.  He isn't going to want to damage his own credibility.
 
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Plutarch    PowerPoint Response 2   7/26/2012 5:27:44 AM

7) (This one is not so much evidence as a interesting fact.) In 2010 BO appointed Lt Gen James Clapper to be Director of National Intelligence, which was odd given that Clapper had publicly supported the notion that the WMD were shipped to Syria.  Why would BO appoint someone to such a key position if he (Clapper) had been discredited about something so important?

 

 

I do not think Clapper supported the idea of a weapons transfer rather he just did not rule one out; there is a difference.

 

 Bush:

 

It could be that Bush was fully humiliated by the debacle in Iraq. It could also be that he looked at all the intelligence and it pointed to Saddam being disarmed well before 2003. Bush had the common sense, grace and humility to admit when he was wrong. It is too bad some of his supporters do not share his traits.

 

 

Powerpoint Ranger: I suggest you stop disseminating right-wing propaganda and have a look at the facts. It would be greatly appreciated if you would at least look at the primary source material: You, CJH, Smitty, or whoever else (If you need help researching it let me know and I will point you in the right direction).

Compare the UNSCOM reports and UNMOVIC reports, see what the Iraqi scientists had to say, see what the US Government had to say, etc.

 

The evidence all points to Saddam disarming in 1991, and no amount of speculation about his WMDs has ever changed that evidence.

 
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Plutarch    Iraq WMDs   7/26/2012 6:33:32 AM

The whole point of the 2003 invasion was to see if Saddam either had re-constituted his WMD programs after UNSCOM left in 1998, or if he had developed far more WMDs than his declarations stated. There was no evidence of  hidden stocks or programs from any time after 1991. Through 7 years of UNSCOM inspections the inspectors destroyed nearly all of the remaining Iraqi stockpiles (far more than any American soldier did in the post-invasion period). What was left was scattered remnants, some entombed, some missing, but none hidden.

The UNMOVIC inspections from 2002-2003 likewise did not uncover any hidden WMD programs, and the post-war investigations done by the ISG and UNMOVIC confirmed that Saddam was weapon-less after 1991. Saddam was no mastermind who conceived a brilliant plan to transfer his weapons to one of his rivals in the Arab world.  If he wanted to get rid of his weapons program it would be far easier just to destroy it internally, which he did to at least part of  his program in 1991. The rest was accounted for by the UN 
 
Nobody disputes these facts except for apparently bitter partisans who live in an altered world, and just cannot let go of the past. So around and around we go with mindless speculation. Some of you are so convinced that Iraqi WMDs will be found in Syria (even though Assad has not even fallen yet) that you think it is a foregone conclusion. What happens though if they are not found? I know none of you will ever admit Saddam was disarmed, but I am curious what story you will tell next about Iraqi WMDs. Some of you are so self-deluded it borders on a clinical diagnosis.
 
Intelligence failures do happen; Iraqi WMDs was one of them. In the lead-up to the war the intelligence was flawed, spurred on by now admitted liars and non-access to legitimate Iraqi sources. It is my hope that some day in the future at least one of you will re-consider and think maybe, maybe that Saddam really was disarmed in 1991.
 
 
 
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