Post by Tom Green on Feb 21, 2007 12:02:13 GMT -5
WMDs—What Is Going On
Earlier this year, rumors began circulating in Washington, D.C., of a classified report that American troops had uncovered a cache of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq. Two congressmen, Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, began investigating the rumors to find out if they were true.
After badgering administration officials for months, the government finally declassified the report by the U.S. Army’s National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC), and released it to the two legislators. The legislators immediately told the rest of Congress and released the report to the public because it gave clear evidence of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction.
The report states that some 500 weapons of mass destruction have been found by coalition forces in Iraq. These munitions were mostly rockets and artillery shells with warheads that contained sarin gas and mustard-gas agents.
Sarin gas kills by attacking the neurological system, and mustard gas is a blister agent that produces burning wherever an individual comes in contact with it. It is potentially fatal if it gets into a person’s lungs. Sarin gas is the deadly chemical agent terrorists used in the deadly attack in 1995 on the Tokyo subway.
Toxic Weapons of Mass Destruction
Apparently, the WMDs discovered in Iraq were manufactured before the war began, and were some of the chemical WMDs that Saddam denied having and that the U.N. inspectors failed to find. These chemical agents “remain hazardous and potentially lethal,” NCIG’s grim report said.
Though hidden, the cache of 500 sarin, nerve and VX weapons made up one of the world’s major chemical weapons arsenals. Frank Gaffney, a former defense official who now heads the Center for Security Policy, asserts there can no doubt about WMDs in Iraq. When some protested that the munitions were old and had degraded, Army Colonel John Chiu said, “Regardless of the purity of the sample, any remaining agent [in the shells] is toxic, with potential to be lethal.”
Lieutenant General Michael D. Maples, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said:
The [chemical munitions found] would represent a danger in Iraq for those who could come in contact with them; or if they fell into the hands of others, potentially they could become a threat either within Iraq and, I believe as the Director of National Intelligence stated, the possibility of use outside of Iraq could not be ruled out.
In speaking for the Pentagon, General Maples told the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee that he expected more. “I do not believe we have found all the weapons,” he stated.
Revealing Weapons of Mass Deception
After a three-year drumbeat of hundreds of reports and stories about how no WMDs have been found in Iraq, and how Bush “lied” and is perceived to have lied so he could lead the U.S. into war, how did the mainstream media treat this revealing story that set the record straight? On the first day:
Neither ABC nor CBS reported the story.
NBC reported it in a single “Nightly News” story, but pooh-poohed it, claiming that “unnamed sources” at the Pentagon had “poured cold water” on the report.
CNN mentioned it in passing; but the newsperson, typically, read the paragraph with skepticism in his voice.
MSNBC mocked the story, calling the find in Iraq “weapons of minor discomfort.”
Only Fox News treated it as an important story.
The New York Times had nothing on it the first day. On the second day, they published a brief article, on page 20, under the headline: “For Diehards, Search for Iraq’s WMD Isn’t Over.”
The Washington Post ran only a five-paragraph article—on page 10.
The news magazines, Time and U.S. News did not even report it.
Newsweek dismissed the story with a headline about “trumped-up threats” in Iraq.
Senator Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania said, “Some may want to play down the significance of this report or even deny that WMDs have been found in Iraq, but I want to be absolutely clear about what we are talking about here. These 500 chemical munitions are weapons of mass destruction.”
The Forgotten Story
The story of WMDs being secretly spirited out of Iraq before the beginning of the war is another important—and largely unreported—story.
Clearly, Saddam had far more than the 500 WMDs the NGIC found, but where did they all go? John Shaw, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense just before and after Iraq’s liberation, was unambiguous in his answer:
[T]hey went to Syria and Lebanon. [They] were moved by Russian Spetsnaz (special forces) out of uniform, that were specifically sent to Iraq to move the weaponry and eradicate any evidence of its existence.
The international news media confirmed that countless Iraqi truck convoys crossed the Syrian border and returned empty, in the run-up to the war.
Sources have revealed that the former head of Russian intelligence head and KGB general, Yevgeni Primakov, went to Iraq in December 2002 to supervise the removal of WMDs. This was the same month Israeli intelligence discovered the operation. Primakov’s orders were “to erase all trace” of Russia’s extensive, long-term involvement in Saddam’s WMD programs.
Shaw’s account was corroborated by two former Iraqi generals: General Georges Sada, former second-in-command of the Saddam’s air force and author of Saddam’s Secrets, and General Ali Ibrahim al-Tikriti, the notorious “Butcher of Basra.”
They both confirmed separately that Iraq possessed significant chemical and biological weapons stockpiles, transported them across the Syrian border by truck and plane beginning in late 2002, and did so with Russian assistance.
John Loftus, a terrorism expert and former prosecutor for the U.S. Justice Department, said:
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 began.
On May 8, 2003, only a month after the fall of Baghdad, The Nation, a liberal magazine, scolded President Bush and the coalition troops for the looting in Iraq’s capital city. They wrote:
Looters cleaned out Iraq’s nuclear facilities long before U.S. investigators reached them. Were they (the looters) only scavengers who unknowingly grabbed radioactive material posing health and environmental dangers? Or were some terrorists looking for dirty-bomb material?
Meanwhile, terrorists have not been idle elsewhere. Palestinian news agency, Ramattan, recently reported that the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah, had announced that it has developed biological and chemical weapons. A leaflet they distributed said:
With the help of Allah, we are pleased to say that we succeeded in developing over 20 different types of biological and chemical weapons, this after a three-year effort.
On May 30, Iraqi and U.S. troops captured three leaders of insurgency cells in Baghdad who were identified as Palestinians.
The threat of wars and terror is a defining sign of the last days. Considering the fragile times in which we live, I believe that we should:
1. Carefully monitor the news and be as aware of what is happening in the world as we can.
2. Check every report we read or hear for accuracy. “Test all things; hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).
3. Trust in God, the One who knows the future and who holds the future.
We cannot go wrong in relying on him for salvation and for safety!
Earlier this year, rumors began circulating in Washington, D.C., of a classified report that American troops had uncovered a cache of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq. Two congressmen, Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, began investigating the rumors to find out if they were true.
After badgering administration officials for months, the government finally declassified the report by the U.S. Army’s National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC), and released it to the two legislators. The legislators immediately told the rest of Congress and released the report to the public because it gave clear evidence of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction.
The report states that some 500 weapons of mass destruction have been found by coalition forces in Iraq. These munitions were mostly rockets and artillery shells with warheads that contained sarin gas and mustard-gas agents.
Sarin gas kills by attacking the neurological system, and mustard gas is a blister agent that produces burning wherever an individual comes in contact with it. It is potentially fatal if it gets into a person’s lungs. Sarin gas is the deadly chemical agent terrorists used in the deadly attack in 1995 on the Tokyo subway.
Toxic Weapons of Mass Destruction
Apparently, the WMDs discovered in Iraq were manufactured before the war began, and were some of the chemical WMDs that Saddam denied having and that the U.N. inspectors failed to find. These chemical agents “remain hazardous and potentially lethal,” NCIG’s grim report said.
Though hidden, the cache of 500 sarin, nerve and VX weapons made up one of the world’s major chemical weapons arsenals. Frank Gaffney, a former defense official who now heads the Center for Security Policy, asserts there can no doubt about WMDs in Iraq. When some protested that the munitions were old and had degraded, Army Colonel John Chiu said, “Regardless of the purity of the sample, any remaining agent [in the shells] is toxic, with potential to be lethal.”
Lieutenant General Michael D. Maples, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said:
The [chemical munitions found] would represent a danger in Iraq for those who could come in contact with them; or if they fell into the hands of others, potentially they could become a threat either within Iraq and, I believe as the Director of National Intelligence stated, the possibility of use outside of Iraq could not be ruled out.
In speaking for the Pentagon, General Maples told the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee that he expected more. “I do not believe we have found all the weapons,” he stated.
Revealing Weapons of Mass Deception
After a three-year drumbeat of hundreds of reports and stories about how no WMDs have been found in Iraq, and how Bush “lied” and is perceived to have lied so he could lead the U.S. into war, how did the mainstream media treat this revealing story that set the record straight? On the first day:
Neither ABC nor CBS reported the story.
NBC reported it in a single “Nightly News” story, but pooh-poohed it, claiming that “unnamed sources” at the Pentagon had “poured cold water” on the report.
CNN mentioned it in passing; but the newsperson, typically, read the paragraph with skepticism in his voice.
MSNBC mocked the story, calling the find in Iraq “weapons of minor discomfort.”
Only Fox News treated it as an important story.
The New York Times had nothing on it the first day. On the second day, they published a brief article, on page 20, under the headline: “For Diehards, Search for Iraq’s WMD Isn’t Over.”
The Washington Post ran only a five-paragraph article—on page 10.
The news magazines, Time and U.S. News did not even report it.
Newsweek dismissed the story with a headline about “trumped-up threats” in Iraq.
Senator Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania said, “Some may want to play down the significance of this report or even deny that WMDs have been found in Iraq, but I want to be absolutely clear about what we are talking about here. These 500 chemical munitions are weapons of mass destruction.”
The Forgotten Story
The story of WMDs being secretly spirited out of Iraq before the beginning of the war is another important—and largely unreported—story.
Clearly, Saddam had far more than the 500 WMDs the NGIC found, but where did they all go? John Shaw, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense just before and after Iraq’s liberation, was unambiguous in his answer:
[T]hey went to Syria and Lebanon. [They] were moved by Russian Spetsnaz (special forces) out of uniform, that were specifically sent to Iraq to move the weaponry and eradicate any evidence of its existence.
The international news media confirmed that countless Iraqi truck convoys crossed the Syrian border and returned empty, in the run-up to the war.
Sources have revealed that the former head of Russian intelligence head and KGB general, Yevgeni Primakov, went to Iraq in December 2002 to supervise the removal of WMDs. This was the same month Israeli intelligence discovered the operation. Primakov’s orders were “to erase all trace” of Russia’s extensive, long-term involvement in Saddam’s WMD programs.
Shaw’s account was corroborated by two former Iraqi generals: General Georges Sada, former second-in-command of the Saddam’s air force and author of Saddam’s Secrets, and General Ali Ibrahim al-Tikriti, the notorious “Butcher of Basra.”
They both confirmed separately that Iraq possessed significant chemical and biological weapons stockpiles, transported them across the Syrian border by truck and plane beginning in late 2002, and did so with Russian assistance.
John Loftus, a terrorism expert and former prosecutor for the U.S. Justice Department, said:
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 began.
On May 8, 2003, only a month after the fall of Baghdad, The Nation, a liberal magazine, scolded President Bush and the coalition troops for the looting in Iraq’s capital city. They wrote:
Looters cleaned out Iraq’s nuclear facilities long before U.S. investigators reached them. Were they (the looters) only scavengers who unknowingly grabbed radioactive material posing health and environmental dangers? Or were some terrorists looking for dirty-bomb material?
Meanwhile, terrorists have not been idle elsewhere. Palestinian news agency, Ramattan, recently reported that the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah, had announced that it has developed biological and chemical weapons. A leaflet they distributed said:
With the help of Allah, we are pleased to say that we succeeded in developing over 20 different types of biological and chemical weapons, this after a three-year effort.
On May 30, Iraqi and U.S. troops captured three leaders of insurgency cells in Baghdad who were identified as Palestinians.
The threat of wars and terror is a defining sign of the last days. Considering the fragile times in which we live, I believe that we should:
1. Carefully monitor the news and be as aware of what is happening in the world as we can.
2. Check every report we read or hear for accuracy. “Test all things; hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).
3. Trust in God, the One who knows the future and who holds the future.
We cannot go wrong in relying on him for salvation and for safety!