Where Did Syria's Stockpiles of WMD Come From?

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by JP5, Mar 23, 2013.

  1. JP5

    JP5 Former Moderator Past Donor

    Joined:
    Mar 17, 2004
    Messages:
    45,584
    Likes Received:
    278
    Trophy Points:
    0
    We invaded Iraq for the concern over WMD. That includes all of it and was not specific to one.
     
  2. pimptight

    pimptight Banned

    Joined:
    Aug 20, 2012
    Messages:
    5,513
    Likes Received:
    23
    Trophy Points:
    0
    It really was.

    I know this, because I have this thing called a memory.
     
  3. For Topical Use Only

    For Topical Use Only Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 21, 2011
    Messages:
    8,308
    Likes Received:
    2,290
    Trophy Points:
    113
    I'd laugh at this pathetic garbage if it hadn't resulted in a heinous war crime with acres of dead bodies.
     
  4. Yosh Shmenge

    Yosh Shmenge New Member

    Joined:
    Apr 22, 2010
    Messages:
    22,146
    Likes Received:
    408
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I sat in my living room and watched on CNN a long snaking convoy of trucks leaving Iraq and heading through the desert into Syria as George Bush got ready to invade looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction.

    Who is surprised Syria still has those weapons?
     
  5. Doug_yvr

    Doug_yvr Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Aug 8, 2008
    Messages:
    19,096
    Likes Received:
    1,827
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Bull(*)(*)(*)(*) you did.

    What weapons? There's not one shred of evidence that Syria used gas or that weapons were moved from Iraq (or even that Iraq had them to move) to Syria.
     
  6. Yosh Shmenge

    Yosh Shmenge New Member

    Joined:
    Apr 22, 2010
    Messages:
    22,146
    Likes Received:
    408
    Trophy Points:
    0
  7. Doug_yvr

    Doug_yvr Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Aug 8, 2008
    Messages:
    19,096
    Likes Received:
    1,827
    Trophy Points:
    113
    You claiming to watch trucks on CNN isn't evidence.
     
  8. Yosh Shmenge

    Yosh Shmenge New Member

    Joined:
    Apr 22, 2010
    Messages:
    22,146
    Likes Received:
    408
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Since the convoys were confirmed in the link I provided, by Israeli and US intelligence, as well as by everyone watching CNN at the time, your wishful denials don't amount to much.
     
  9. Doc91478

    Doc91478 Banned

    Joined:
    Feb 13, 2013
    Messages:
    233
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Hmm... because Syria has been a direct threat to Israel, don't you think any facilities dedicated to the manufacture of chemical WMD would have been raided and destroyed? Remember when the Israeli's destroyed Syria's capability for nuclear manufacture?
    The Progressive Marxist Democrats that created the lies about no WMD in Iraq are pointing at everyone else for the responsibility for the lie except themselves.
     
  10. Doc91478

    Doc91478 Banned

    Joined:
    Feb 13, 2013
    Messages:
    233
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Suspicions of Second Syrian Nuclear Plant

    Posted by Matthew Avitabile On November - 2 - 2011

    [​IMG]

    Following Israel’s 2007 raid that destroyed a Syrian plutonium plant, it now appears that the Syrians had a parallel uranium enrichment plant. Despite the Ba’athist state’s denials of working with former Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan, new evidence is emerging.

    In al-Hasaka, Syria, suspicion has arisen at a site nominally identified as a cotton-spinning plant. DebkaFile had a very similar story earlier today, identifying the uranium as being from Saddam’s Iraq. This site is very similar to a design that Khan sold Muammar Qaddafi’s Libya before that country dismantled its nuclear program in 2003.

    It appears that the IAEA has also released documents catching Khan and the Syrians red-handed:


    The U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency also has obtained correspondence between Khan and a Syrian government official, Muhidin Issa, who proposed scientific cooperation and a visit to Khan’s laboratories following Pakistan’s successful nuclear test in 1998.

    This also comes after the country received a visit from the disgraced scientist:


    The former investigator said Syria acknowledged to the IAEA that Khan made at least one trip to Syria to deliver scientific lectures, as The Los Angeles Times reported in 2004.

    The plans for the Syrian site are almost identical to those that Khan sold Qaddafi.


    Another set of the same plans was turned over to the IAEA after Libya abandoned its nuclear program. Libya told the IAEA it had ordered 10,000 gas centrifuges from Khan, most of which it intended for a facility that was to be built according to the plans. Centrifuges are used to enrich uranium in the weapons-making process.

    The investigator said the layout of the Al-Hasakah facility matches the plans used in Libya almost exactly, with a large building surrounded by three smaller workshops in the same configurations. Investigators were struck that even the parking lots had similarities, with a covered area to shield cars from the sun.
    These plans show Assad again not playing by the rules, believing Syria to be above international law because it can play it both ways in the Middle East. On the one side, Assad can help Iran and fund Hamas and Hezbollah while also claiming to be a bulwark against al Qaeda. Assad cannot have it both ways– and hopefully his days are coming to an end.
     
  11. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

    Joined:
    Feb 6, 2007
    Messages:
    63,174
    Likes Received:
    4,995
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Any plant capable of making chemicals can also make chemical weapons. Unless you are arguing that Israel bombed every single chemical plant in Syria, then they still have that capability.

    Egypt has been a threat to Israel but Israel has never bombed Egypt's chemical weapon plants.

    Fall premise from you? I think so.
     
  12. Slyhunter

    Slyhunter New Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Jul 20, 2010
    Messages:
    9,345
    Likes Received:
    104
    Trophy Points:
    0
  13. Doug_yvr

    Doug_yvr Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Aug 8, 2008
    Messages:
    19,096
    Likes Received:
    1,827
    Trophy Points:
    113
  14. Doc91478

    Doc91478 Banned

    Joined:
    Feb 13, 2013
    Messages:
    233
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    0
    The history books on this issue shouldn’t be written just yet.​

    by Ryan Mauro
    June 6, 2010


    Ha’aretz has revived the mystery surrounding the inability to find weapons of mass destruction stockpiles in Iraq, the most commonly cited justification for Operation Iraqi Freedom and one of the most embarrassing episodes for the United States. Satellite photos of a suspicious site in Syria are providing new support for the reporting of a Syrian journalist who briefly rocked the world with his reporting that Iraq’s WMD had been sent to three sites in Syria just before the invasion commenced.

    The newspaper reveals that a 200 square-kilometer area in northwestern Syria has been photographed by satellites at the request of a Western intelligence agency at least 16 times, the most recent being taken in January. The site is near Masyaf, and it has at least five installations and hidden paths leading underneath the mountains. This supports the reporting of Nizar Nayouf, an award-winning Syrian journalist who said in 2004 that his sources confirmed that Saddam Hussein’s WMDs were in Syria. (see: http://www.worldthreats.com/?p=68)




    One of the three specific sites he mentioned was an underground base underneath Al-Baida, which is one kilometer south of Masyaf. This is a perfect match. The suspicious features in the photos and the fact that a Western intelligence agency is so interested in the site support Nayouf’s reporting, showing that his sources in Syria did indeed have access to specific information about secret activity that is likely WMD-related. Richard Radcliffe, one of my co-writers at WorldThreats.com, noticed that Masyaf is located on a road that goes from Hamah, where there is an airfield sufficient to handle relatively large aircraft, into Lebanon and the western side of the Bekaa Valley, another location said to house Iraqi weapons.

    It seems to be commonly accepted that Iraq did not have WMDs at all. The intelligence was obviously flawed, but the book has not been closed on what actually happened. The media blasted the headline that Charles Duelfer, the head of the Iraq Survey Group tasked with finding out if Saddam had WMDs, concluded that a transfer did not occur. In reality, his report said they were “unable to complete its investigation and is unable to rule out the possibility that WMD was evacuated to Syria before the war” due to the poor security situation.

    Although no conclusion was made, Duelfer has since said that he is “convinced” that no WMD went to Syria. He is a competent and credible individual, but there is evidence that key information on this possibility was not received by the Iraq Survey Group, which had many of its own problems.

    On February 24, 2009, I went to see a talk Duelfer gave at the Free Library of Philadelphia to promote his book. He admitted there were some “loose ends” regarding the possibility that Iraqi WMD went to Syria, but dismissed them. Among these “loose ends,” Duelfer said, was the inability to track down the Iraqis who worked for a company connected to Uday Hussein that sources said had driven “sensitive” material into Syria. A Pentagon document reveals (http://www.worldthreats.com/?p=60) that an Iraqi dissident reported that 50 trucks crossed the border on March 10, 2003, and that his sources in Syria confirmed they carried WMD. These trucks have been talked about frequently and remain a mystery.

    During the question-and-answer period and during a follow-up interview, Duelfer made several interesting statements to me that reinforced my confidence that such a transfer occurred, although we can not be sure of the extent of it.

    General Georges Sada, the former second-in-command of the Iraqi Air Force, claimed in his 2006 book that he knew two Iraqi pilots that flew WMD into Syria over the summer of 2002, which came before a later shipment on the ground. I asked Duelfer if Nizar Nayouf or the two Iraqi pilots were spoken with.

    “I did not interview the pilots nor did I speak with the Syrian journalist you mentioned,” he said. “We were inundated with WMD reports and could not investigate them all. … To narrow the problem, we investigated those people and places we knew would have either been involved or aware of regime WMD activities.”

    He then told me that the lack of testimony about such dealings is what convinced him that “a lot of material went to Syria, but no WMD.” He cited the testimony of Naji Sabri, the former Iraqi foreign minister, in particular.

    “I knew him very well, and I had been authorized to make his life a lot better, or a lot worse,” he told me.

    He said that Sabri’s position would make him aware of any such deal between the two countries. However, in his book, Duelfer said that Sabri had nothing to do with any of Iraq’s WMD efforts at any time. “His statements on WMD from an intelligence perspective would have been irrelevant,” Duelfer wrote.

    “Someone among the people we interviewed would have described this,” Duelfer said. However, such testimony does exist. Don Bordenkircher, who served as the national director of jail and prison operations in Iraq for two years, told me that he spoke to about 40 Iraqis, either military personnel or civilians assigned to the military, who talked about the WMDs going to Syria and Lebanon, with some claiming they were actually involved. Their stories matched and were not contradictory, he said. Another military source of mine related to me how an Iraqi intelligence captain in Al-Qaim claimed to have witnessed the movement of suspicious convoys into Syria between February and March 2003.

    I also asked Duelfer if he was aware of the intelligence provided by the Ukrainians and other sources that the Russians were in Iraq helping to cleanse the country shortly before the invasion. His facial expressions before I even finished the question showed he genuinely had never even heard of this.

    As explained in detail in Ken Timmerman’s book Shadow Warriors, high-level meetings were held on February 10-12, 2004, involving officials from the U.S., the UK, and Ukraine. Among the attendees were Deputy Undersecretary of Defense John A. Shaw, the head of MI6, and the head of Ukrainian intelligence, Ihor Smeshko. The Ukrainians provided all the details of the Russian effort, including the dates and locations of meetings to plan the intervention and even the names of the Russian Spetsnaz officers involved. Shaw also worked with a British source that ran an intelligence network in the region and provided substantiation and additional details.

    The former head of Romanian intelligence during the Cold War, Ion Pacepa, has provided supporting testimony. He says that he had personal knowledge of a Soviet plan called “Operation Sarindar” where the Russians would cleanse a rogue state ally of any traces of illicit activity if threatened with Western attack. The plan’s purpose was to deny the West of any evidence incriminating Russia or its ally. The presence of Russian advisors in Iraq shortly before the invasion, some of whom received medals from Saddam Hussein, is a strong indication that this plan was followed.

    Dave Gaubatz, who was the first civilian federal agent deployed to Iraq, told me that he saw intelligence that “suggested that some WMD had been moved to Syria with the help of Russian intelligence.” Iraqis personally confirmed to him that there was a Russian presence before the American soldiers arrived.

    Amazingly, Duelfer seems to have never been informed of this intelligence. “This does not mean … that it was not passed on to ISG [Iraq Survey Group],” he said to me later. The fact that the head of the WMD search was never even made aware of this indicates something went seriously wrong. In Timmerman’s book, Shaw says that Smeshko complained about the CIA’s station chief in Kiev not being cooperative. Timmerman researched the station and chief and found that he was very close with other people in the intelligence community who were doing their best to fight Bush administration policies.

    Duelfer actually provides information that supports this account. He confirmed that Russia was helping Iraq’s illegal ballistic missile program and had close ties to Saddam’s regime.

    “Russians were present in Iraq for many activities. … Russian officials regularly met with Iraqi officials. … Russian KGB officers were in regular contact with the regime at very senior levels. … Russian businessmen were all over Baghdad trying to secure a variety of deals. And of course Russians, including very senior Russians, were in receipt of lucrative oil allocations under the UN Oil-For-Food Program,” Duelfer told me.

    The theory that Iraq’s WMD went to Syria is not a fringe conspiracy theory. John Loftus, a former Justice Department prosecutor known for his wide-ranging contacts in the intelligence community, said in an interview we did that “every senior member of a Western, European or Asian intelligence service whom I have ever met all agree that the Russians moved the last of the WMDs out of Iraq in the last few months before the war.”

    General Tommy Franks and General Michael DeLong, the top two officials in CENTCOM when the invasion began, have spoken of credible intelligence supporting the theory. General James Clapper, President Obama’s pick to replace Dennis Blair as director of national intelligence, has previously stated his belief that the weapons went to Syria and took part in the meetings organized by Shaw.

    Much more evidence exists that the WMD went to Syria, as documented here. Obviously, it is impossible to prove and we do not know exactly what went to Syria, but the history books on this issue shouldn’t be written just yet.

    Source:
    http://pjmedia.com/blog/satellite-p...that-iraqi-wmd-went-to-syria/?singlepage=true
     
  15. frodly

    frodly Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2008
    Messages:
    17,989
    Likes Received:
    427
    Trophy Points:
    83
    Can anyone point out, if Saddam was expecting a US invasion and was a paranoid dictator willing to do anything to maintain power(which he was), why would he have shipped all his potent weapons out of the country? It is one of the most incoherent and counterintuitive ideas I have ever heard. Why would they have ever done such a thing? It is such an absurd proposal, that it surprises me that it is brought up even in places like this forum and the daily mail!!
     
  16. Tipper101

    Tipper101 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 22, 2008
    Messages:
    5,779
    Likes Received:
    3,024
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Nah, Saddam was really a good boy who was unfairly punished. Poor guy just had too much oil that evil Amerika and the big bad Bush would do anything for, so they concocted a lie that only Liberals didn't fall for, because they're so smart.
     
  17. Doc91478

    Doc91478 Banned

    Joined:
    Feb 13, 2013
    Messages:
    233
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    0



    Iraqi leader expected bombing in 2003, but not invasion
    [​IMG]
    A 2000 file photo shows Iraqi President Saddam Hussein during a military parade in Baghdad. An FBI agent who interrogated Saddam after his capture said the dictator told him "he initially miscalculated ... President Bush's intentions" before the 2003 invasion.

    1/25/2008

    NEW YORK — Saddam Hussein allowed the world to believe he had weapons of mass destruction to deter rival Iran and did not think the United States would stage a major invasion, according to an FBI interrogator who questioned the Iraqi leader after his capture.

    Saddam expected only a limited aerial attack by the United States and thought he could remain in control, the FBI special agent, George Piro, told CBS’s “60 Minutes” program in an interview to be broadcast Sunday.

    “He told me he initially miscalculated ... President Bush’s intentions,” said Piro. “He thought the United States would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in 1998 ... a four-day aerial attack.”

    “He survived that one and he was willing to accept that type of attack,” Piro said.

    In 2003, a close aide of Saddam's told The Associated Press that Saddam did not expect a U.S. invasion and deliberately kept the world guessing about his weapons program, although he already had gotten rid of it.

    Keeping up the illusion of weapons program
    Saddam publicly denied having unconventional weapons before the U.S. invasion, but prevented U.N. inspectors from working in the country from 1998 until 2002 and when they finally returned in November 2002, they often complained that Iraq wasn’t fully cooperating.

    Piro, a Lebanese-American who speaks Arabic, debriefed Saddam after he was found in an underground hideout near his home city north of Baghdad in December 2003, nine months after the U.S. invasion.

    Piro said Saddam also said that he wanted to keep up the illusion that he had the program in part because he thought it would deter a likely Iranian invasion.

    “For him, it was critical that he was seen as still the strong, defiant Saddam. He thought that (faking having the weapons) would prevent the Iranians from reinvading Iraq,” Piro told Scott Pelley of “60 Minutes.”

    Piro added that Saddam had the intention of restarting an Iraqi weapons program at the time, and had engineers available for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

    Kuwait invasion after insult to Iraqi women
    Piro also mentioned Saddam’s revelation during questioning that what pushed him to invade Kuwait in 1990 was a dishonorable swipe at Iraqi women made by the Kuwaiti leader, Sheik Jaber Al Ahmed Al Sabah.

    During the buildup to the invasion, Iraq had accused Kuwait of flooding the world market with oil and demanded compensation for oil produced from a disputed area on the border of the two countries.

    Piro said that Al Sabah told the foreign minister of Iraq during a discussion aimed at resolving some of those conflicts that “he would not stop doing what he was doing until he turned every Iraqi woman into a $10 prostitute. And that really sealed it for him, to invade Kuwait,” said Piro.

    Source:
    http://www.nbcnews.com/id/22847771/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/
     
  18. Tipper101

    Tipper101 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 22, 2008
    Messages:
    5,779
    Likes Received:
    3,024
    Trophy Points:
    113
    ...yeah, cause all he would have needed to do was use his WMD weapons and all the countries invading him would have run away and never bothered him again. Our invasions always come with a disclaimer "We are invading you to take away your WMD's, but only if you don't use them on us."

    Maintaining power is best when you use your WMD's. That's why everyone's nuking everyone nowadays.....oh wait....
     
  19. frodly

    frodly Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2008
    Messages:
    17,989
    Likes Received:
    427
    Trophy Points:
    83

    What the hell are you talking about? Countries with nuclear weapons DO NOT get invaded, specifically because they have nuclear weapons. A country with nuclear weapons has never been invaded, because of the fear of the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

    And obviously using WMDs wouldn't have changed the outcome of the war, but paranoid dictators do whatever it takes to maintain power. Using WMDs would have been exactly what Saddam would have done, if he had them. There is absolutely no doubt about it.
     
  20. frodly

    frodly Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2008
    Messages:
    17,989
    Likes Received:
    427
    Trophy Points:
    83


    Ok, your source says Saddam didn't have WMDs and pretended to, in order to maintain the illusion of strength. Also, even if he didn't expect an invasion, how does that explain why he would ship all his WMDs out of the country? If he had them underground, they would have been safe from bombing. Which is what we were told was the reason they hadn't found WMDs prior to that point. Anyways, it was made explicitly clear we did intend to invade after those three months, and the trucks were not said to have left three months early. So ya, that doesn't explain it.
     
  21. JP5

    JP5 Former Moderator Past Donor

    Joined:
    Mar 17, 2004
    Messages:
    45,584
    Likes Received:
    278
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Because he didn't want to be caught with the "goods." Afer all, he'd been lying all those years and once the UN and the rest of the world knew he'd been lying, then he would have lost his power. At least moving them out with the intention of getting them back someday when everything blew over, was his only hope. It just amazes me that no one in the world ever put Syria on the spot and made them prove what Saddam moved into their country during all those huge trucks that were seen going in to Syria from Iraq in the weeks just before the invasion. It was just kind of like....."Oh well, we know he moved something big there...and lots of it, but nobody cares."
     
  22. Jango

    Jango New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 16, 2012
    Messages:
    2,683
    Likes Received:
    16
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Have you ever heard of "A Clean Break"?
     
  23. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Mar 2, 2012
    Messages:
    150,174
    Likes Received:
    62,813
    Trophy Points:
    113
    no doubt.. thinking of the little boy who cried wolf


    .
     
  24. Albert Di Salvo

    Albert Di Salvo New Member

    Joined:
    Jan 25, 2011
    Messages:
    25,739
    Likes Received:
    684
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Syria's WMD probably originated in Iraq and was moved to Syria prior to March 2003.
     
  25. frodly

    frodly Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2008
    Messages:
    17,989
    Likes Received:
    427
    Trophy Points:
    83

    That makes no sense. If there was an American invasion, there is no way Saddam was going to keep power. That was never on the table. Why would he prepare for such a reality? He hid after the invasion. He didn't stick around and say, "hey look there are no WMDs, now you can leave." Of course not!! What sort of nonsensical way of thinking is that? He may not have been the most rational person in the world, but he would have sought to maintain power. WMDs would be his best hope. Yet he shipped them away? It makes no sense.

    PS. He knew as well as anyone that the war had nothing to do with WMDs. It had to do with neoconservative conceptions of geopolitical strategy(not sure if he understood that or not, but certainly understood American imperialism very well). Neocons wanted regional power bases across the globe. The neocons imagined Iraq could be that. A place from which America could easily project power throughout the region. They just had no conception of how states function. So when they dismantled the previous state institutions in the so called "debathification," they destroyed whatever state had existed previously. They then had an irrational belief in markets and non-state actors to pick up the pieces. That proved to be the massive failure anyone with any understanding knew it would. So they invaded to make Iraq a center of American power and influence in the region, and instead debilitated Iraq and strengthened Iran. The war was a massive failure on all fronts, and only people unaware of the history of the war and of the current situation don't realize that.
     

Share This Page