Think Iraq didnt train terrorists??

[lowflier03]

THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials...

...Most of the 50,000 translated documents relate directly to weapons of mass destruction programs and scientists, since David Kay and his Iraq Survey Group--who were among the first to analyze the finds--considered those items top priority. "At first, if it wasn't WMD, it wasn't translated. It wasn't exploited," says a former military intelligence officer who worked on the documents in Iraq.

So far only 50,000 of 2 million documents (2.5%) from Saddam's regime have been translated and examined. In those the estimate is that Saddam trained over 8,000 terrorists.

The rest of the eye opening story is here:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/550kmbzd.asp

 

[Fly Navy]

Iraq had WMDs right until Bush came into office, then the whole world said they didn't have WMDs. We haven't found anything of substance, so maybe they didn't have them. Then again, they managed to bury MiG-25s in the sand... what else did they bury or sell.

 

[A4sForever]

Iraq had WMDs ......We haven't found anything of substance.... Then again, they managed to bury MiG-25s in the sand... what else did they bury or sell.

Scott Speicher ???.... and we know "they" had him.

 

[Fly Navy]

Scott Speicher ???.... and we know "they" had him.

I hope some day we find something substantive about him, as well as those in Vietnam. Those searches still continue, thankfully.

 

[TurnandBurn55]

What else did they bury or sell?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31050-2004Nov6.html

There's a lot more we can't account for besides a couple vials of anthrax

Remember that for a very long time, the consensus view was that the Rosenbergs at best gave no useful information to the Russians, at worst they were scapegoats of the Red Scare...

Then in the mid-90s Operation Venona was declassified, the Russians opened their archives to the west and Feklisov (the NKVD/KGB station chief) came forward... everyone realized that, yeah, they were guilty as sin.

I wouldn't be surprised if in 10-20 years history on Iraq gets revised similarly to realize that Bush was a lot more right than anyone wants to believe.

 

[eddie]

I wouldn't be surprised if in 10-20 years history on Iraq gets revised similarly to realize that Bush was a lot more right than anyone wants to believe.

Because we'd find the stuff elsewhere?

 

[KBayDog]

I hope some day we find something substantive about him, as well as those in Vietnam. Those searches still continue, thankfully.

A good friend of mine spent the bulk of his enlisted days with Joint Task Force Full Accounting (now The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC)). Those men and women work tirelessly, 24/7, to ensure that every missing American servicemember is accounted for. They are some great, great people.

http://www.jpac.pacom.mil

 

[Fly Navy]

A good friend of mine spent the bulk of his enlisted days with Joint Task Force Full Accounting (now The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC)). Those men and women work tirelessly, 24/7, to ensure that every missing American servicemember is accounted for. They are some great, great people.

http://www.jpac.pacom.mil

Good link. Virtual rep points.

 

[TurnandBurn55]

Because we'd find the stuff elsewhere?

Actually... not exactly...

The biggest mistake made by all was the "smoking gun" hypothesis...

Prior to the Iraq war, if you'd asked America what they thought we would find as WMDs (or what they though Bush proposed we'd find)... they would have said we'd find a few warehouses full of warheads, filled with VX and labeled "made by Saddam, 1999".

This is ludicrous. Nobody in the know seriously believed this, but the whole debate is run by hysterics screaming "Bush lied!" based on this fact.

Remember, chemical and biological weapons are easy to produce. Aum Shinkoryo, the Japanese cult, produced sarin nerve gas in their basement. It's notoriously difficult to conceal.

The difficulty is the delivery system. If those f#ckers had aerosolized it in the subway system, it would have killed hundreds... instead, they punctured zip-lock bags full and it made a lot of folks sick.

When the UN inspectors were in Iraq, they weren't expecting some crazy smoking gun. They were expecting makeshift labs of nerve gas and anthrax reseach. When Saddam interfered, blocked, and stalled 90 out of 109 surprise inspections.. what, are they inspectors stupid? They obviously though Saddam dismantled his basement test tubes, documents, and petri dishes... spread them elsewhere, and reconstituted them a week later. The inspectors literally saw trucks leave sites as they waited to inspect.

That's what I'm getting at. It's NOT hard to hide... until you marry your WMDs with a serious delivery system.

So after Saddam heard a few deadlines... he broke them up for a longer time... a few buried in rose bushes, a few across the border.. thinking he'd fight the US, and a Black Hawk Down or two later, John Kerry would be elected president and he'd be left alone.

I'm thinking in a few more years, we'll never find the 'smoking gun'. What we will find is hints and clues from translated documents, defectors from Syria and Lebanon, former Saddam cronies, a few vials and bits and pieces... and it'll become obvious that he was making no small effort to get a nascent WMD program underway..

 

[nittany03]

I'm thinking in a few more years, we'll never find the 'smoking gun'. What we will find is hints and clues from translated documents, defectors from Syria and Lebanon, former Saddam cronies, a few vials and bits and pieces... and it'll become obvious that he was making no small effort to get a nascent WMD program underway..

And as far as some people are concerned, it'll never count as proof, just a Bush administration conspiracy . . .

 

[usmcecho4]

Actually... not exactly...

The biggest mistake made by all was the "smoking gun" hypothesis...

Prior to the Iraq war, if you'd asked America what they thought we would find as WMDs (or what they though Bush proposed we'd find)... they would have said we'd find a few warehouses full of warheads, filled with VX and labeled "made by Saddam, 1999".

This is ludicrous. Nobody in the know seriously believed this, but the whole debate is run by hysterics screaming "Bush lied!" based on this fact...

I'm thinking in a few more years, we'll never find the 'smoking gun'. What we will find is hints and clues from translated documents, defectors from Syria and Lebanon, former Saddam cronies, a few vials and bits and pieces... and it'll become obvious that he was making no small effort to get a nascent WMD program underway..

It kinda sounds like we were looking for a "smoking gun" or whatever gerund describes what WMDs do.

"There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And... as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them." -General Tommy Franks 22 Mar 2003

"I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction." -Kenneth Adelman of the Defense Policy Board 23 Mar 2003

"We have seen intelligence over many months that they have chemical and biological weapons, and that they have dispersed them and that they're weaponized and that, in one case at least, the command and control arrangements have been established." -Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld 24 Mar 2003 on "Face the Nation"

"We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories... we’ve so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." -President George W Bush to Polish TV 30 May 2003

"It was a surprise to me then, it remains a surprise to me now, that we have not uncovered weapons... in some of the forward dispersal sites. Again, believe me, it’s not for lack of trying. We’ve been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they’re simply not there... We were simply wrong." -Lt. General James Conway, USMC 30 May 2003

"I don't know, because it was the stockpile that presented the final little piece that made it more of a real and present danger and threat to the region and to the world... [the] absence of a stockpile changes the political calculus; it changes the answer you get." -Secretary of State Colin Powell to Washington Post 3 Feb 2004

"When I made that presentation in February 2003, it was based on the best information that the Central Intelligence Agency made available to me. We studied it carefully; we looked at the sourcing in the case of the mobile trucks and trains. There was multiple sourcing for that. Unfortunately, that multiple sourcing over time has turned out to be not accurate. And so I'm deeply disappointed... it turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and in some cases, deliberately misleading. And for that, I am disappointed and I regret it." -Secretary of State Colin Powell to "Meet the Press" 16 May 2004

Semper Fi,
usmcecho4

 

[Flash]

So far only 50,000 of 2 million documents (2.5%) from Saddam's regime have been translated and examined. In those the estimate is that Saddam trained over 8,000 terrorists.

The rest of the eye opening story is here:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/550kmbzd.asp

There were only three terrorist groups that Saddam Hussein was supporting before the 2003 invasion. They were the Mujahedin-e-KhalqOrganization or People's Mujahedin of Iran, a Saddam creation of Iranian exiles, the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) and the Abu Nidal Organization. All three served Saddam's political aims, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq were proxies in his fight against Iran and the two latter terrorist groups were washed up Palestinian terrorist groups that were more about showing Saddam's solidarity with the Palestinian struggle than anything else. It is even rumored that he was behind Abu Nidals death in Baghdad in 2002. There is littel to no evidence that the two Palestinian groups were active while they were based in Iraq.

White House link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/decade/sect5.html

The only radical Islamist/Salafist group that was active in Iraq before the 2003invasion was Ansar al-Islam. It was a radical Kurdish terrorist group that ruled a small peice of territory adjacent to Kurdish controlled Iraq. It was not controlled or supported in any way by Saddam Hussein. Shortly after the start of the 2003 invasion, Kurdish Peshmerga and US special forces invaded the enclave defeated the group. Apparently though, some survivors of the group might be still active.

Wikipedia Ansar al-Islam link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansar_al-Islam

As for burying stuff, it is not like the planes they buried were going to work. I don't think this MiG-25 will ever fly again http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk155/buriedJets.htm

Still no WMD's though......:icon_wink

 

[Brett327]

I don't think this MiG-25 will ever fly again http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk155/buriedJets.htm

Come on - couple weeks in the corrosion shop and she'll be ready to FCF.

Brett

 

[AllAmerican75]

It would be much easier to bury a couple warheads than an aircraft though. But what about underground bunkers? I know it's well documented that Saddam had a few, how likely is it that he had a couple that are undocumented and well hidden?

 

[usmcecho4]

It would be much easier to bury a couple warheads than an aircraft though. But what about underground bunkers? I know it's well documented that Saddam had a few, how likely is it that he had a couple that are undocumented and well hidden?

It seems a bit odd that Saddam would save his WMD for later when his regime and his life were at stake. In addition, given the political boost and the "told you so" position the US could addopt if WMD had been found I think whatever wasn't found is not findable/is not there. And given that the US has stopped looking for WMD I think the admin shares this opinion. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1586792,00.html

Semper Fi,
usmcecho4