The WMD Tapes
Those who say there were no WMDs, such as Reverend Lowery at the King funeral, should choose their words more carefully. We cannot say there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq prior to the invasion, but we cannot say there were, either. The accurate formulation is that we found no mass stockpiles of WMDs as we expected to. New, authenticated tapes of Saddam Hussein visiting with his aides, though, provides plenty of reason to believe that Saddam was not quite so innocent as war opponents would have us believe:
In the transcripts, one of Saddam’s aides discusses filling missiles with germs. “Yes, the intention is that the missile will be filled with chemical or germ, and when it comes down it will cover a wider circle than the traditional missile,” the aide tells Saddam. Saddam replies: “That’s good, they are teaching us things that will be useful in the future.”
Other aides seem to discuss hiding weapons from U.N. inspectors. “We have not told them the truth about the imported material,” one says. He adds, “Where was the nuclear material transported to? A number of them were transported out of Iraq.” He also says: “We will confess, but not to the biological program.”
For more on this story, I refer you to this excellent post by Jeff Goldstein…
these recordings provide little in the way of new information. We know that Saddam had chemical and biological agents at one point because the U.S. and Britain sold them to him, How Did Iraq Get Its Weapons? We Sold Them
Reports by the US Senate’s committee on banking, housing and urban affairs — which oversees American exports policy — reveal that the US, under the successive administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr, sold materials including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever germs and botulism to Iraq right up until March 1992, as well as germs similar to tuberculosis and pneumonia. Other bacteria sold included brucella melitensis, which damages major organs, and clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene.
[ ]…”Intelligence community analysts from the CIA, and the DIA reviewed the translations and found that while fascinating from a historical perspective the tapes do not reveal anything that changes their post war analysis of Iraq’s weapons programs nor do they change the findings contained in the comprehensive Iraq Survey group report,” the spokeswoman said in a statement.
“The tapes mostly date from early to mid 1990s
How To Kill A Mockingbird
In absolute desperation and in a brave attempt to calm down the Arab street, the Australian SBS network delivers the diplomatic peace offering for the Muhammad cartoons. The scene is set the timing is perfect…”More cucumber sandwiches?” President P…