Hussein Kamel,....told CIA and British intelligence officers and U.N. inspectors in the summer of 1995 that after the gulf war, Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to deliver them.
Huh???!!!! Hussein Kamel is the person who told us about all of the hidden, UNDECLARED, domentation buried and located on HIS OWN chicken farm!!!
pbs.org
"Iraq had a big problem on its hands, because it needed a new explanation for [Kamel's revelations]. And the explanation they hit upon was, "We are shocked, shocked, to discover that under our very noses, Kamel all this time has been hiding all kinds of weapons and documentation. We've discovered it on his chicken farm, and here it is. You may have it all."
But from a Counter-Intelligence perspective, there is every possibility that Kamel may have been part of an elaborate disinformation operation where he provided documentation (which could easily be duplicated and hidden elsewhere) to establish his Bona Fides, but the real mission could very well have been to convince the west that Saddam had destroyed his physical weapons.
Now use a bit of logic here PT, and try and think this through from Saddam's perspective.. You have chemical weapons you've been told to destroy. And these weapons represent your true deterrent capability against some perceived attack by those nasty Jews or imperialist Americans..
So do you destroy them all?? Or how about just destroying a good portion, inflating the number of them you claim to have actually used against Iran, or having destroyed yourself because of shelf-life issues, and squirreling away a few thousand??
And to finally get those inspectors out of the country, then why not hand them a bunch of documents so they think you've really destroyed your physical weapons and that they "caught you" red-handed with prohibited documents and accomplished what they needed to accomplish so they can call it a day and go home??
I'm not convinced that Sadddam has destroyed all of his weapons and documents, and forever renounced any designs to develop WMDs. And you know something?? It's not the responsibility of the global community to be forced to strip-search Iraq to find them.. Saddam has to provide them, and create an atmosphere of confidence that "he's changed his stripes" sufficiently that we can cease the inspections and leave him to continue oppressing his own people (that's not our business, after all, right??)
So Barry's article might be plausible, but no where is it complete and convincing evidence that he's rid himself of all of his chemical weapons. Especially with Iraqi officers (likely republican guards) have threatened to use chemical weapons (they aren't supposed to even possess) against a Kurdish villiage located near an Iraqi military base:
"We will gas you when US bombs fall, Kurds told
(Filed: 28/02/2003)
If war comes to Iraq, the Kurds of Kifri will be right in the line of fire. Iraqi officials have threatened that the moment the first American bomb lands, they will reply with a chemical assault on the town. (with those non-existent chemical warheads that Saddam doesn't have right??: Hawk)
But in the entire place, there is not a single gas mask to be had, and no detection posts, decontamination centres or safe houses.
In lieu of proper protection, the residents of Kifri have been doing what they can to prepare. The women have baked high-energy biscuits that will keep fresh for weeks. The men scour the town's bazaar for extra blankets and plastic sheeting.
At night families listen intently to the news on ageing radio sets.
"It's going to be hard on the children," said Ali Muhammad Nasir, 30, who lives with his wife, Runak, and two little ones. "But we know only too well what Saddam's capable of."
Message 18641775
If anything, these officers seem to believe that Saddam still has chemical weapons, and that they will be available to them for use in a scorched earth policy..
And even more compelling is the fact that, despite Kamel claiming that all WMDs were destroyed after the Gulf War, the UN Inspectors spent YEARS destroying WMDs, precursors, and delivery systesm... LITERALLY TONNES OF THE STUFF!!!! Thus Kamel was a LIAR!!!:
Ekeus and other former U.N. inspectors said this week that while Kamel provided valuable information, he frequently embellished and lied to enhance his reputation or to preserve illegal weapons programs. "He was a consummate liar," Ekeus said in a telephone interview. "He wanted to return [to Iraq] at some stage and make a political comeback when Saddam Hussein moved to the side. All the more reason to preserve some of the WMD [weapons of mass destruction] secrets."
Kamel returned to Baghdad in 1996, where he was killed.
Ekeus said Kamel's suggestions that Iraq had destroyed all of its chemical and biological weapons as early as 1991 were "absurd." The former U.N. Special Commission, which was responsible for destroying Iraq's weapons from 1991 to 1998, carried out the destruction of more chemical, biological weapons than occurred during the Persian Gulf War, Ekeus noted. He said also that the U.N. inspectors carried out the destruction of tons of chemical weapons and agents between 1992 and 1994.
washingtonpost.com
And that only indicates that the Gulf War never really ended. And UNSC resolution 678 was never truly complied with, nor any of the subsequent resolutions. And 678 authorizes member states to use "all necessary means" to restore peace and international stability in the region...
And the phrase "all necessary means" meant military force back then, and nothing has been done to nullify that definition in later resolutions. Only NOW, post 9/11, when Bush has decided that "all necessary means" much be escalated from containment (predominantly by US military forces and $$$$) to actual regime change.
Hawk |
