Saddam Had WMD: The Missing Dots
Saddam Had WMD: The Missing Dots
http://www.investors.com/editorial/I...issue=20060314
(Gold9472: Last night, I was forced to listen to John Gibson on Fox News Radio because Sander Hicks had told me he was going to be on. Needless to say, I don't think they played his interview (still waiting for someone to confirm that). Anywho... John pointed out that ABC News had posted PROOF that Saddam Hussein did have WMD, and that he also collaborated with Osama Bin Laden. They posted documentation that was first reported to be in existence by the Weekly Standard, a WELL-KNOWN PNAC "news" outlet. Also, John showed absolutely no skepticism about the authenticity of the documents even though this Administration has a sad history of relying on (and maybe supplying) forged documents. Not to mention the fact that these supposed documents say he had WMD. THEY STILL WEREN'T FOUND. This news about Saddam, WMD, and Osama should be read with the graniest grain of salt.)
Posted 3/14/2006
Origins Of War: President Bush has ordered the vast quantity of documents and tapes captured by U.S. forces in Iraq to be made public. Based on what has been revealed already, a lot of people owe him an apology.
It's been a long time coming, but we may soon know everything about how Saddam Hussein brutalized the Iraqi people, whether he had links to al-Qaida, what really happened to his weapons of mass destruction and how he successfully deceived weapons inspectors.
Stephen Hayes of The Weekly Standard has revealed that President Bush has ordered the release for public analysis of more than 3,000 hours of audiotapes of Saddam Hussein chairing his Revolutionary Command Council and 48,000 boxes of records documenting his military activities.
The order came Feb. 17, a day after ABC News broadcast snippets from 12 hours of audiotapes obtained by FBI translator and former U.N. weapons inspector Bill Tierney. The president, according to Hayes, told National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley that "this stuff ought to be out."
And indeed it should. For in the 12 hours of tapes revealed so far is documentation that Saddam had active WMD programs and conspired to deceive weapons inspectors, hiding them and then spiriting them out of the country with Russian help.
In short, they are a damning indictment of the "Bush lied" crowd and a total justification for Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The recordings released so far show how Saddam was hiding his WMD from weapons inspectors. They also show the Iraqi dictator discussing previously unknown plans for enriching uranium.
In one 1992 tape, Saddam discusses the diversion of electric power from a massive plant in Basra for a uranium-enrichment process like one the U.S. used to create the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. In another tape, a top Iraqi scientist explains to Saddam how uranium is being enriched through the advanced process of plasma separation.
The tapes support the account of Mahdi Obeidi, who'd been in charge of the centrifuge program, that parts and blueprints were hidden from U.N. inspectors but not destroyed. Components of a gas centrifuge used to enrich weapons-grade uranium and documents relating to WMD were discovered in a barrel buried in Obeidi's backyard in a rose garden.
Details of the release of the tapes and documents are still being worked out, including a "scrubbing" the data for sensitive information. But Rep.
Peter Hoekstra, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is delighted. He says just 68 of the 48,000 boxes of documents captured in the coalition's rapid advance three years ago and held at U.S. Central Command's forward command in Qatar have been delivered to his committee.
"This is a bold decision in favor of openness," said Hoekstra, who's been dogged in his determination to get the material out. "By placing these documents online and allowing the public the opportunity to review them, we can cut years off the time it will take to gain knowledge from this potential treasure trove of information."
And what a trove it is. Of the more than 2 million documents captured after the fall of Baghdad, fewer than 4% have been translated. On another of the tapes, one of Saddam's top aides asks rhetorically, "Where was the nuclear material transported to?" Answering his own question, he then says, "A number of them were transported out of Iraq."
A frustrated Hoekstra once said of the unreleased information, "I'm beginning to believe the postwar intelligence may be as bad as the prewar intelligence." From what we know so far, the postwar intelligence in this material may prove the prewar intelligence to be on the money.
We have a lot more dots to connect. Let's get started.
