Report: New details on Iraqi weapons emerge?

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http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,5921220^663,00.html

According to this report from an australian newspaper, one of Saddam's bodyguards has defected to Isreal. He's posted quite detailed information on weapons programs and sites...

Despite the fact that the shuttle crash has bumped Iraq off the headlines, this story raises some questions...

If this info is true, the UNMOVIC inspectors should have been able to target these sites like a duck on a junebug...I can't believe this type of news is broken on the internet, to the general public, on Drudgereport, of all places. Yet nothing new has been reported from the inspectors.

If this guy spilled his guts to Isreal, shouldn't this intel be shared with USA? Granted, Isreal has their own interests, but I thought they were out allies?

The only conclusions I can arrive at, are: either the information is dubious, or everyone involved is holding their cards close...remember, Colin Powell has a speech at the UN on Wednesday, Feb. 5. Some news reports have portrayed the speech as an Adlai Stevenson replay, in which the "smoking gun" will be disclosed.

Powell's speech will be very important. Still, the current release of information is somewhat perplexing. Not the least of which is that the major news outlets have not reported on this story.
 
UN inspectors are a joke, they were meant to be a joke, and they will remain a joke. Their job is to keep the US from acting.

Someone please tell me why our illustrious UN inspectors have YET to inspect a military site????? One would think that if the military were to be responsible for deployment why would someone else be responsible for the weapon's hiding?

When the UN failed to go to the scientists first I knew it was a setup. They have only confirmed their actions by studiously avoiding military installations.
 
What is the credibility of the source? I can't believe the Israeli's are letting this out, although it has been timed to be first thing in the morning, Monday Morning in Iraq.

There could be incredible fallout if the Chinese and the N. Koreans are currently involved.
 
Hasn't someone in the administration said that Powell won't be producing a smoking gun, but rather a lot of circumstantial evidence (the preponderance of which, I assume, will sway world opinion?)
 
There is a smattering of reports on this. This could be the most hard evidence produced since this whole mess began last year..... Why has this story not taken off like a rocket? Or, is it about to?

Diesle
 
This seems like a pretty damning article to me. I don't know if I can trust the source, but if it is all true then I think that there is nothing left to say give Iraq more time.
 
I loved reading that story!

It rings true, but even if it's fiction, I loved reading it!
 
Here's the article:


Saddam's bodyguard warns of secret arsenal

02feb03

SADDAM Hussein's senior bodyguard has fled with details of Iraq's secret arsenal.

His revelations have supported US President George W. Bush's claim there is enough evidence from UN inspectors to justify going to war.
Abu Hamdi Mahmoud has provided Israeli intelligence with a list of sites that the inspectors have not visited.

They include:

AN underground chemical weapons facility at the southern end of the Jadray Peninsula in Baghdad;

A SCUD assembly area near Ramadi. The missiles come from North Korea;

TWO underground bunkers in Iraq's Western Desert. These contain biological weapons.

William Tierney, a former UN weapons inspector who has continued to gather information on Saddam's arsenal, said Mahmoud's information is "the smoking gun".

"Once the inspectors go to where Mahmoud has pointed them, then it's all over for Saddam," Tierney said.

Tierney, who has high-level contacts in Washington that go to the White House, said the information we publish today on Mahmoud's revelations "checks out, absolutely checks out".

Mahmoud was a mem ber of the elite unit that protects Saddam.

It is called the Murasiq Qun – the "Inner Circle".

He was known as "The Gatekeeper".

Mahmoud is a muscular Saddam lookalike often photographed standing behind Saddam when he is seated, or to his left when on the move.

Last week, Mahmoud was being debriefed at a high-security base in Israel's Negev Desert.

Ariel Sharon, the country's hard-line prime minister, has only allowed snippets of Mahmoud's sensational claims to be shared with the CIA and MI6.

"Sharon intends to shatter the growing anti-war movement," a source close to Mr Sharon said.

"He plans to call all those European leaders who are wavering to let them know how Saddam has continued to fool Hans Blix and his weapons inspectors."

Mahmoud's revelations include locations of five bunkers buried beneath man-made sand dunes.

Stockpiled in the bunkers are warheads identical to the empty shell cases found two weeks ago by the UN inspectors.

Mahmoud said those shells were on their way to be refilled and stored in the bunkers.

A transcript from his debriefing includes:

"Saddam's weapons of mass destruction are also concealed in a tunnel complex deep beneath the sewers of Baghdad and in an underground complex in Ouja, to the north of Tikrit.

"The complex was built five years ago with help from Chinese engineers.

"The entrance to the site is through a house in Tikrit. It is the home of one of Saddam's cousins and is more than half a mile from where the weapons are stored."

In another excerpt from his debriefing, Mahmoud boasts: "I was inside the innermost circle where Saddam eats and sleeps.

"I was among the handful of bodyguards closest to him.

"Very few people are allowed close to Saddam.

"Many of the TV images you see of him were taken years ago. Most people now only speak to him over the phone. He usually calls them.

"If they have to call him back with information he wants, it is passed through his sons (Uday and Qusay) or (Deputy Prime Minister) Tariq Aziz.

"All those close to him have codes, which they use to access the outer circle. But even they can only come so close to Saddam before there is a cut-off point – the Inner Circle. Even Tariq Aziz is checked to see if he is carrying weapons.

"Saddam knows fortunes are being offered to have him assassinated."

Saddam's paranoia increased after Uday, his eldest son, narrowly escaped assassination when gunmen riddled his car with bullets in 1996. Uday was partially paralysed and uses a wheelchair.

To avoid falling victim to even his own bodyguards, Saddam is a walking arsenal.

"He has concealed guns all over his body," Mahmoud said.

"He also has panic buttons to press if he even suspects somebody is about to attack him."

Israeli intelligence sources have hinted that the deal with Mahmoud included smuggling his family out of Iraq.

Mossad agents have done this before.

At the start of Saddam's reign of terror, they persuaded an Iraqi pilot to fly his Russian fighter to Israel – after spiriting out his wife and children.



privacy © Herald and Weekly Times
 
That is pretty damning. It sounds as though Israeli and US intelligence services have suspected some of this and he is able to confirm other sources.

And it wouldn't be the first time Saddam's inner circle has cracked.

You know, Hitler never had doubles, to the best of my knowledge. Saddam, in many ways, is the bigger kook.
 
This one came to me yesterday. I was dubious and didn't post it. Today Sean Hannity mentioned it on his radio show (without a lot of emphasis) and my wife tells me she heard it on TV last night. But AFAIK the media (as we know it) hasn't picked it up.

Of course, if it's correct, then the media probably doesn't want to credit Bush for his actions re Iraq.

It's getting time to get off the pot on this one - dragging on and on.

-IB
 
What if Iraq started scrambling trucks in these locations - the satellites would see it all.

I wonder how many headlines we read are targetted at Saddam (not us) or his people... it's hard to tell these days.
 
Brit Hume had it as an item in his 2 minute drill on his show.

Skepticism, but it certainly wasn't dismissed as blather.

We'll see what Colin has to say on Wed....
 
This is either bogus or getting squashed for some reason....

Something is definatly 'wrong' with this though.... Every news outlet went wild today over the finding of a 20 year old ceramic cast for a warhead for God sake......

Diesle
 
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