Just as we all expected: Saddam secretly moved WMDs to Syria

[CHARLESMANSON]

Looks like "Bush lied, people died" crashes and burns....... :nono: I heard this guy give a 2 hour radio interview and let me tell you....this guy sounds VERY CREDIBLE. If you are a liberal, you probably will just shoot him down.....it's ok...live in partisan denial. :violin:


Larry Elder interviews General Georges Sada, who served as the second-highest ranked general in the Iraqi Air Force. A two-star general, he wrote a recently published book called "Saddam's Secrets: How an Iraqi General Defied and Survived Saddam Hussein." Here are some sound bites from that interview:

Elder: General, as you know, the president has been accused of lying about the intelligence, fabricating it, cherry-picking it, that he wanted to go to war, he really didn't believe that Saddam had WMD. It was all a big smokescreen. When you hear people accuse the president of lying about WMD, of misleading the country and the world, your reaction, Gen. Georges Sada, is what?

Sada: Let me tell you. I am really surprised how people are speaking like this and their soldiers are still in the battle. You see, a soldier when he is in battle, he wants to feel that all his nation are backing him and they are with him. And now I tell you I feel very sorry when I see some people in this country, their soldiers are in the battle, and they are discussing political things making that soldier to feel that he is there in the wrong place. That's one. Second, if there was something right had been done in this country, it was the best decision taken in the proper time, to go and liberate Iraq from an evil dictatorship who only God knows what he was going to do in the region, and maybe even to America, because that man was possessing the weapons of mass destruction and then he was with very evil intentions towards all the West, especially America.

Elder: Fifteen months before we invaded Iraq, the president began talking about what our intentions would be if Saddam would not comply with the U.N. resolutions. During those 15 months . . . did Saddam have WMD, have stockpiles of WMD, and, if so, what type?

Sada: Iraq possessed WMD and they were there, and they were chemical and biological, and nuclear weapons. He have also deals with China to make it in China this time, not in Iraq, because F-16s of Israelis have destroyed the Iraqi nuclear project, therefore, he designed a new system to have the atom bomb to be done in China, and he would only pay the money, and he did for $100 million, and $5 million were paid for down payment. I know the bank, I know the branch, and I know the accountant who did it.

Elder: What happened to the chemical and biological weapons?

Sada: The chemical and biological weapons were available in Iraq before liberating the country, but Saddam Hussein took the advantage of a natural disaster that happened in Syria when a dam was collapsed and many villages were flooded. So Saddam Hussein took that cover and declared to the world that he is going to use the civilian aircraft for an air bridge to help Syria with blankets, food and fuel oil, and other humanitarian things, but that was not true. The truth is he converted two regular passenger civilian aircraft, 747 Jumbo and 727 . . . all the weapons of mass destruction were put there by the special Republican Guards in a very secret way, and they were transported to Syria, to Damascus, by flying 56 flights to Damascus. . . . In addition . . . also a truck convoy on the ground to take whatever has to do with WMD to Syria.

Elder: I've always thought it incredible, bizarre, unbelievable, that our intelligence could have been wrong, British intelligence could have been wrong, the French, the Germans, the Russians, the U.N., the Egyptians, the Jordanians, all of whom thought he had WMD. I never felt comfortable with the idea that everybody got it wrong. . . .

Sada: Your intelligence said that Saddam Hussein had WMD. . . . I agree with them. They were there in Iraq. But they didn't find them after liberation of Iraq, because they were searching not in the right place. These things were transported by air and by ground.

Elder: General, why would Saddam, knowing we were about ready to invade, transfer WMD out of the country instead of using it on American and coalition troops?

Sada: Because he knew that the power of America to liberate the country is more than what he can do. And maybe not all WMD were ready to use then. And that's why he transported to Syria and he thought that he's going to maintain in the power as he was maintained in 1991 and then he was going to get it back again and then proceed to complete the whole project of WMD.

 

[CHARLESMANSON]

Sorry liberals. I know this thread will upset you guys, and you will more than likely either launch a personal attack on me, or you will try and say that the General is full of shit, or you will try to change the topic. Whatever the case -- have at it -- your waters are chummed. :fingerc:

 

[CHARLESMANSON]

as usual...crickets :142smilie

 

[BobbyBlueChip]

I thought we already saw them all buried in the sand in your post last year.

So, according to you, Saddam had WMD's that we knew were there and now we have no clue where they are because we invaded.

And this is progress? :mj07: :withstupi :mj07:

 

[gecko]

as usual...crickets :142smilie

chirp...chirp....chirp :mj07:



LOL. Charleyboy, you are willing to believe everything you want to hear? I want to see the intel that says Saddam moved his weapons.


Look, I like Larry Elder. Seen him on Court TV. But General Sada dispenses this as second hand information. Why can't he disclose the names of those pilots? You mean to tell me that these commercial planes were gutted and filled with WMD's and flown back and forth some 50+ times?
BTW the General has not been involved in the Saddam regime since 1990!


I'm actually interested in any more info regarding this, but where are the eyewitnesses? Where is the intelligence?


I want FACTS, not speculation! :nono:

 

[JCDunkDogs]

It seems unlikely. I thought Saddam hated Assad. Didn't Assad send troops to Desert Storm? So why would Syria stick its neck out to hide WMD for Saddam? Just honest questions.

 

[Chadman]

Here's a different viewpoint, coming from several different sources. I guess it all depends on which side you choose to believe:

New York Times Sunday splash: A secret history of the Iraq war, reliant on U.S. military documents
Published: March 11, 2006

The New York Times plans the first in a series of two articles regarding Saddam Hussein's pre-war and Iraq war strategy based on a "secret U.S. military history." While the story looks to shed light on the internal workings of the Hussein government, it relies largely on internal U.S. military documentation, secret interviews, and the interrogation records of American analysts, many of whom posed as "military historians."

Another story describes Saddam's "frantic" escape in early April 2003 as US troops approached Baghdad, based on a "day-by-day reconstruction of Saddam's movements" compilted by the U.S. Joint Forces Command.

Both articles were written by Michael Gordon, chief military correspondent of the Times, and Bernard Trainor, authors of the soon to be published book, Cobra 11: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq. An earlier article written by the pair claimed that German spies passed on secret intelligence to the United States before the invasion, though the Berlin government has denied that it happened.

The documents purport that Saddam was "deeply distrustful" of his own soldiers, making crucial decisions himself and micromanaging, effectively hobbling his forces. Some examples, the TIMES says, include:

-- The Iraqi dictator was so secretive and kept information so compartmentalized that his top military leaders were stunned when he told them three months before the war that he had no weapons of mass destruction, and they were demoralized because they had counted on hidden stocks of poison gas or germ weapons for the nation's defense.

-- He put a general widely viewed as an incompetent drunkard in charge of the Special Republican Guard, entrusted to protect the capital, primarily because he was considered loyal.

-- Saddam micromanaged the war, not allowing commanders to move troops without permission from Baghdad and blocking communications among military leaders.

Much of this material is included in a secret history prepared by the U.S. military of how Saddam and his commanders fought their war. Posing as military historians, American analysts interrogated more than 110 Iraqi officials and military officers, treating some to lavish dinners to pry loose their secrets and questioning others in a detention center at the Baghdad airport or the Abu Ghraib prison. U.S. military officials view the accounts as credible because many were similar. In addition, more than 600 captured Iraqi documents were reviewed.

In December 2002, he told his top commanders that Iraq did not possess unconventional arms, like nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, according to the Iraq Survey Group, a task force established by the CIA to investigate what happened to Iraq's weapons programs. Saddam wanted his officers to know they could not rely on poison gas or germ weapons if war broke out. The disclosure that the cupboard was bare, Aziz said, sent morale plummeting.

"Saddam's compliance was not complete, though," the TIMES declares, saying that even his officers were stunned by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations.

 

[djv]

The good news they were out in open not buried. Syria ready to use them at any time. Only problem Syria does not know they have them. We must remember 5/1/03. Bush major fighting is over, mission accomplished. We only lost over 2300 soldiers out of our 3200 since that statement. And not WMD was used. So much poor planning killed our people then any WMD's.

 

[BetterUp]

Charlie,
You and I should sit down and play some poker.

 

[StevieD]

Maybe instead of Charlie knowing where the WMD's are someone should tell Bush or Cheney or Rumsfield so they can secure them. What an idiot!

 

[AR182]

Tapes reveal WMD plans by Saddam.............

Tapes reveal WMD plans by Saddam.............

i just read this article & found it interesting...... maybe because i thought a "nut job" like saddam would have done anything he could to obtain wmds & even may have had weapons by the time the u.s. invaded iraq..............



By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


Audiotapes of Saddam Hussein and his aides underscore the Bush administration's argument that Baghdad was determined to rebuild its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction once the international community had tired of inspections and left the Iraqi dictator alone.

In addition to the captured tapes, U.S. officials are analyzing thousands of pages of newly translated Iraqi documents that tell of Saddam seeking uranium from Africa in the mid-1990s.

The documents also speak of burying prohibited missiles, according to a government official familiar with the declassification process.

But it is not clear whether Baghdad did what the documents indicate, said the U.S. official, who asked not to be named.

"The factories are present," an Iraqi aide tells Saddam on one of the tapes, made by the dictator in the mid-1990s while U.N. weapons inspectors were searching for Baghdad's remaining stocks of weapons of mass destruction.

"The factories remain, in the mind they remain. Our spirit is with us, based solely on the time period," the aide says, according to the documents. "And [inspectors] take note of the time period, they can't account for our will."

The quote is from roughly 12 hours of taped conversations that unexpectedly landed in the lap of Bill Tierney, a former Army warrant officer and Arabic speaker who was translating for the FBI tapes unearthed in Iraq after the invasion.

Mr. Tierney made a copy, which he provided to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The committee in turn gave a copy to intelligence analysts who authenticated the voice as that of Saddam.

Mr. Tierney said that the quote from the Saddam aide, and scores of others, show Saddam was rebuilding his once-ample weapons stocks.

"The tapes show that Saddam rebuilt his program and successfully prevented the U.N. from finding out about it," he said.

There also exists a quote from the dictator himself, who ordered the tapings to keep a record of his inner-sanctum discussions, that Mr. Tierney thinks shows Saddam planned to use a proxy to attack the United States.

"Terrorism is coming ... with the Americans," Saddam said. "With the Americans, two years ago, not a long while ago, with the English I believe, there was a campaign ... with one of them, that in the future there would be terrorism with weapons of mass destruction."

The tapes are spurring a new debate over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction stocks more than a year after the CIA's Iraq Survey Group (ISG) completed a lengthy postwar inspection. It concluded that Iraq did not possess stocks of weapons of mass destruction when the U.S-led coalition invaded in March 2003.

There is more to come. House intelligence committee Chairman Rep. Peter Hoekstra, Michigan Republican, told The Washington Times that about 500 hours of additional Saddam tapings are still being translated and analyzed by the U.S. In addition, in Qatar, U.S. Central Command's forward headquarters in the Persian Gulf, sit 48,000 boxes of Iraqi documents, of which the military has delivered 68 pages to the committee.

"I don't want to overstate what is in the documents," Mr. Hoekstra said. "I certainly want to get them out because I think people are going to find them very interesting."

He said the office of John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, is now weighing the congressman's request to release 40 of the 68 pages.

Of the tapes released so far, Mr. Hoekstra said, "Everything [Saddam] is doing is saying, 'Let's take it and hide it' with a clear intent. 'As soon as this is over, we're going to be back after this.' "

So far, the tapes do not shed light on what ultimately happened to Saddam's large stocks of weapons of mass destruction. None were found by the ISG, whose director, Charles Duelfer, filed a final report in 2004.

Some pundits and recently retired military officers are convinced that Saddam moved his remaining weapons to Syria. They cite satellite photos of lines of trucks heading into the neighboring country before the invasion and the fact Saddam positioned his trusted Iraqi Intelligence Service agents at border crossings.

Mr. Duelfer said there were promising leads that weapons of mass destruction did go into Syria, but the security situation prevented him from closing the loop. Mr. Duelfer concluded that Saddam planned to resume weapons of mass destruction production once the United Nations lifted economic sanctions.

Mr. Tierney said he thinks the regime poured chemical weapons into lakes and rivers and sent other stocks over the border to Syria. Mr. Tierney served as a U.N. weapons inspector in the 1990s.

"The ISG, they were lied to in a very systematic way," he said. "Lying. They were very good at it."

 

[vinnie]

 

[SKEETER1]

Liberals....Keep reading the NY Times

Liberals....Keep reading the NY Times

Along w/ NBC, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, CBS.....All I can tell you.....you want a fair assessemnt...log onto Michael Savage.....I am pro Bush but he has made major flaws BUT I do support his war on terror. All the Dems want to do is impeach Bush to get back to what the Republicans did to Clinton. Listen and learn....be impartial....The Democrats constantly do this....Impeach, Impeach ,Impeach....They will never regain the house.....they stand for nothing but hate.

 

[smurphy]

....you want a fair assessemnt...log onto Michael Savage....

:142smilie :142smilie :142smilie :mj07: :mj07: :mj07:
there are not nough laugh icons for that statement

 

[djv]

Savage fair and balanced! Just can't go that far. Someone say impeach? Maybe just keep in check. Along stay in Texas. 20 years. He can take his Dad and Clinton with him to play poker and cut weeds. Just get him out of our pocket.