u.n. inspectors:saddam shipped out wmd`s before,during and after the war

[sphincter]

u.n. inspectors: saddam shipped out wmd before & after war
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Friday, June 11, 2004

The United Nations has determined that Saddam Hussein shipped weapons of mass destruction components as well as medium-range ballistic missiles before, during and after the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 2003.

The UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission briefed the Security Council on new findings that could help trace the whereabouts of Saddam's missile and WMD program.

The briefing contained satellite photographs that demonstrated the speed with which Saddam dismantled his missile and WMD sites before and during the war. Council members were shown photographs of a ballistic missile site outside Baghdad in May 2003, and then saw a satellite image of the same location in February 2004, in which facilities had disappeared.

UNMOVIC acting executive chairman Demetrius Perricos told the council on June 9 that "the only controls at the borders are for the weight of the scrap metal, and to check whether there are any explosive or radioactive materials within the scrap," Middle East Newsline reported.

"It's being exported," Perricos said after the briefing. "It's being traded out. And there is a large variety of scrap metal from very new to very old, and slowly, it seems the country is depleted of metal."

"The removal of these materials from Iraq raises concerns with regard to proliferation risks," Perricos told the council. Perricos also reported that inspectors found Iraqi WMD and missile components shipped abroad that still contained UN inspection tags.

He said the Iraqi facilities were dismantled and sent both to Europe and around the Middle East. at the rate of about 1,000 tons of metal a month. Destionations included Jordan, the Netherlands and Turkey.

The Baghdad missile site contained a range of WMD and dual-use components, UN officials said. They included missile components, reactor vessel and fermenters – the latter required for the production of chemical and biological warheads.

"It raises the question of what happened to the dual-use equipment, where is it now and what is it being used for," Ewen Buchanan, Perricos's spokesman, said. "You can make all kinds of pharmaceutical and medicinal products with a fermenter. You can also use it to breed anthrax."

The UNMOVIC report said Iraqi missiles were dismantled and exported to such countries as Jordan, the Netherlands and Turkey. In the Dutch city of Rotterdam, an SA-2 surface-to-air missile, one of at least 12, was discovered in a junk yard, replete with UN tags. In Jordan, UN inspectors found 20 SA-2 engines as well as components for solid-fuel for missiles.

"The problem for us is that we don't know what may have passed through these yards and other yards elsewhere," Buchanan said. "We can't really assess the significance and don't know the full extent of activity that could be going on there or with others of Iraq's neighbors."

UN inspectors have assessed that the SA-2 and the short-range Al Samoud surface-to-surface missile were shipped abroad by agents of the Saddam regime. Buchanan said UNMOVIC plans to inspect other sites, including in Turkey.

In April, International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Mohammed El Baradei said material from Iraqi nuclear facilities were being smuggled out of the country.

 

[Phaedrus]

I hate to go up against such a credible source, but the actual UNMOVIC report, which can be found here (PDF), is not nearly so dramatic.

The entire world was aware of the fact that Hussein had SA-2 missile engines -- he was not ordered to destroy them until February 2003 and had a 1 March deadline (and the U.S. invaded on 20 March, making it a moot point.)

So, Saddam was ordered to destroy missile engines, then those missiles engines and parts thereof show up at a scrap metals dealer? What part of this is not supposed to add up???


Phaedrus

 

[Oceans11]

You know.

In a kinda perverted way.

I'm glad it's turned out the way it has.

 

[PatPatriot]

Democrats are deeply saddened.

 

[PatPatriot]

U.N. Experts Find 20 Engines Used in Banned Iraqi Missiles in Jordan Scrapyards
Associated Press ^ | Jun 9, 2004 | Edith M. Lederer



UNITED NATIONS (AP) - U.N. weapons experts have found 20 engines used in banned Iraqi missiles in a Jordan scrapyard along with other equipment which could be used to make weapons of mass destruction, an official said Wednesday.

The discoveries were revealed to the U.N. Security Council by acting chief U.N. inspector Demetrius Perricos during in a closed-door briefing. The text was obtained by The Associated Press.

The U.N. team was following up on an earlier discovery of a similar Al Samoud 2 engine in a scrapyard in the Dutch port of Rotterdam. Perricos said inspectors also want to check in Turkey, which has also received scrap metal from Iraq.

The discoveries raise questions about the fate of material and equipment that could be used to produce biological and chemical weapons as well as banned long-range missiles.

The missile engines and some other equipment discovered in the scrapyards had been monitored by U.N. inspectors because of their potential dual use in both legitimate civilian activities and banned weapons production.

In his briefing to the Security Council, Perricos said U.N. inspectors do not how much material has been removed from Iraq that they had been monitoring.

U.N. inspectors were pulled out of Iraq just before the war began in March 2003, and the United States has refused to allow them to return, instead deploying its own teams to search for weapons of mass destruction.

Perricos suggested that the interim Iraqi government, which will assume sovereignty when the U.S. and British occupation of the country ends on June 30, may want to reconsider "the whole policy for the continued export of metal scrap" which apparently started in mid-2003 and is regulated by the U.S.-led coalition.

"The removal of these materials from Iraq raises concerns with regard to proliferation risks ... thereby also rendering the task of the disarmament of Iraq and its eventual confirmation, more difficult," Perricos said.

"The only controls at the borders are for the weight of the scrap metal, and to check whether there are any explosive or radioactive materials within the scrap," he said, according to the text of his briefing.

Afterwards, he told reporters that up to a thousand tons of scrap metal was leaving Iraq every day.

"It's being exported. It's being traded out, and there is a large variety of scrap metal from very new to very old, and slowly, it seems the country is depleted of metal," he said.

During last week's visit to Jordan, Perricos told the council that U.N. experts visited "relevant scrapyards" with the full cooperation of Jordanian authorities and discovered 20 SA-2 missile engines.

The U.N. team also discovered some processing equipment with U.N. tags - which show it was being monitored - including heat exchangers, and a solid propellant mixer bowl to make missile fuel, he said. It also discovered "a large number of other processing equipment without tags, in very good condition."

"These visits provide just a snapshot of the whole picture since the scrap metal has a short residence time and is re-exported to various countries," Perricos told the council.

In its quarterly report to the council on Monday, the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission which Perricos heads, said a number of sites in Iraq known to have contained equipment and material that could be used to produce banned weapons and long-range missiles have been cleaned out or destroyed.

The inspectors said they didn't know whether the items, which had been monitored by the United Nations, were at the sites during the U.S.-led war in Iraq. The commission, known as UNMOVIC, said it was possible some material was taken by looters and sold as scrap.

UNMOVIC said its experts and a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. body responsible for dismantling Iraq's nuclear program, were jointly investigating items from Iraq discovered in a scrapyard in Rotterdam.

 

[PatPatriot]

Tommorows NY Times:

NO SYRUP FOR PANCAKES AT ABU GHRHABI PRISON;
DAN RATHER AND TED KENNEDY DEMAND ANSWERS!

 

[lander]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Patriot:
Tommorows NY Times:

NO SYRUP FOR PANCAKES AT ABU GHRHABI PRISON;
DAN RATHER AND TED KENNEDY DEMAND ANSWERS!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Right, because rape, torture and sodomy are "the American way."

Pat, why don't you invite some of these "brave" don't-ask-don't-tellers over for some "innocent fun" with your wife?

 

[sphincter]

phaedrus....i respect your opinion but i think the actual report is every bit as dramatic....

they uncovered a sophisticated procurement network for the acquisition of equipment,materials and technology during the period absent from inspections(99-02)....using trading companies established by and controlled by the military industrialization commission of iraq.....

items including missile guidance and control systems and navagational systems.....global positioning equipment......some of which were not declared to unmovic during the course of inspections....


the cleaning out and/ or total dismantling of sites being monitored....if they were not involved in any suspicious activity,why clean out or dismantle them...

the tuwaitha agricultural and biological research center with equipment suitable for the production of biological agents....

i think the report is much more revealing than i would have anticipated...i actually expected them to declare finding nothing....i think that would be in the best interests of the u.n.....considering some of kofi annan`s recent remarks regarding u.s. foreign policy.....

 

[PatPatriot]

Lander what you invite some of your rump ranger freinds over and pray to your leader.

 

[PatPatriot]

No I think we really should have just let them go forward with their programs after 9/11 and let Libya have their nuclear fun also along with N.Korea...because they would never do anything if we just sat down and talked nice to them give them anything they want and suck em off twice a week....because everyone knows that Saddam,Mommar,and Kim are just misunderstood and we should extend an Olive branch....for the children of course.

 

[Massmilwaukee]

The SA-2 Missle. I can buy a more sophisticated missle from the local hobby store.
WMD in Iraq. Do you have any idea what chicken shit and diesel fuel will do?

 

[Phaedrus]

sphincter

I guess my lack of reaction to the UNMOVIC report stems from the fact that it really is less of a shocker than some of the others that have come out. You should search for and read the actual reports to which the media alludes in all circumstances imho, because the media -- leftist, rightis,t whatever -- always seems to have only the most tenuous grasp on or regard for the truth.

None of that stuff is all that suprising, or contradictory of what has already been chronicled in other reports. Hussein is not a particularly nice man, and he never recognised the US/UN's authority to tell him what he could and could not have around. So -- he had SA-2's. We finally got around to telling him he had to get rid of them, and he tried to sock a few away in the process. Not real suprising; in fact I'd be far more suprised if it didn't turn up.

For all of my grousing about the war in Iraq, I will be the first to admit that what has suprised me the most is that Hussein didn't have the WMD's. This time fifteen months ago my biggest concern about Iraq was that once cornered, Saddam would decide to go out with a blast and take out 10-20,000 U.S. troops in the process via botulism or some other nicety.

Anyway, this stuff, the SA-2's, is no biggie. If anything it's weird that this stuff is only just making the news; most of it like the Jordanian and Netherlands finds are months old.


Phaedrus