Iraqi says WMD still in country : Sun Times

[jbfam4]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/iraq/cst-nws-iwmd07.html
Iraqi says WMD still in country

December 7, 2003

BY CON COUGHLIN




BAGHDAD -- An Iraqi colonel who commanded a front-line unit during the buildup to the war in Iraq has revealed how he passed top-secret information to British intelligence warning that Saddam Hussein had deployed weapons of mass destruction in his western desert.

Lt.-Col. al-Dabbagh, 40, says the weapons were not used because the Iraqi army did not want to fight for Saddam. He also believes the weapons have been hidden at secret locations by Saddam's paramilitary, the Fedayeen, and are still in Iraq. "Only when Saddam is caught will people talk about these weapons," he said.

Al-Dabbagh, who was the head of an air defense unit in the western desert, said cases containing warheads with some kind of chemical or biological weapon were delivered to front-line units, including his own, toward the end of last year. He said they were to be used by Fedayeen and units of the Special Republican Guard when the war reached "a critical stage."

In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Telegraph, al-Dabbagh, who did not want his first name used, said he believed he was the source of the British government's controversial claim, published in September 2002 in the intelligence dossier on Iraq's weaponry, that Saddam could launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes. The dossier was at the center of a British death inquiry last summer when intelligence expert David Kelly, who had leaked details that questioned the case for war to the BBC, committed suicide.

[mhr]

1. Smells Like Propaganda

eom

[Scott Lee]

2. This sounds like old rehashed news.

Considering the guy was a party to Tony Blair's hot steaming plate of horsepoop called the "dossier", I think I know where I can file this story.

[jbfam4]

3. read more here

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2003/12/07/dl0701.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/12/07/ixportal.html

Col Dabbagh told Mr Coughlin that the 45-minute claim was "100 per cent correct". He added that Saddam had hidden huge stocks of arms, including his chemical and biological munitions, at secret sites across Iraq. The colonel's claims must be taken very seriously. He has no reason at all to make them up, or to lie to Mr Coughlin, by whom he was reluctant to be interviewed. Yet it is important to be clear about what Col Dabbagh's testimony does - and what it does not - establish. There can now be little doubt that Saddam possessed chemical and biological weapons. Col Dabbagh saw those weapons for himself when they were delivered to his unit, and indeed received instructions on how they were to be used.

The means of delivery for those weapons were, however, extremely primitive: they could only be used on the battlefield, where range was very restricted and their accuracy minimal. That seems to have been one reason why they were not used during the war. The American advance was so rapid that the Iraqis could only deploy chemical weapons around Baghdad: that would have killed the Iraqi civilian population - who did not have masks - but not the US soldiers, who did. Even Iraqi officers loyal to Saddam Hussein balked at that.

It is clear that Saddam Hussein did not have the ability to launch missiles which could carry chemical or biological weapons reliably to most sites in Iraq - never mind to places as far away as Cyprus or London. Yet when the Prime Minister presented the intelligence dossier setting out the case for war to Parliament, he described the threat to Britain from Saddam as "current and serious". He allowed the impression to be given that Saddam's ability to launch chemical and biological weapons "which could be activated in 45 minutes" meant that British troops in Cyprus, or even civilians in Britain itself, could be targeted. This was not true, and many of those in the intelligence services knew it was not true. When, however, the newspapers published stories wrongly claiming that British bases in Cyprus were at risk from Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, no one in the Government did anything whatever to correct them.

Mr Blair's determination to confront Saddam Hussein was admirable and right, but New Labour's addiction to spin, and an inability to tell the truth without embellishing it, meant that, in making the case for war, he misrepresented to the public the intelligence that he had been given. Dr David Kelly conveyed, albeit in a somewhat mangled and self-serving form, the concern of some members of the intelligence world about that misrepresentation to the BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan. The Prime Minister then insisted to Parliament that the BBC had been completely wrong to suggest that there was any unhappiness within the intelligence community about the Government's interpretation of the information given to them about Iraq's WMD capability: but as was revealed during the Hutton Inquiry, there was in fact considerable unhappiness on precisely that point.

[mazzarro]

4. Saddam Hussein seems to have omnipotent powers and

control in Iraq and indeed all over the world even after being disposed from power! Woooooow! So the Iraqi people will still not divulge the location of Saddam Hussein's WMD because he is out of power but still alive? Somehow I sense that if SH is killed tomorrow another reason will be concorted for the non-existent WMD - something to do with SH becoming a mythical Arabic/Islamic figure that die-hard Fedayeens revere.

[wryter2000]

5. Even if it's true

We were told there were tons of this and tons of that and we knew where they were. We were also told that Iraq could deliver them to our shores. The whole thing was built on the assertion that Iraq was an imminent danger to the US. Anything short of that makes no difference, imho.

[Dudley_DUright]

6. So where are the factories that made these supposed weapons?

Al-Dabbagh, who was the head of an air defense unit in the western desert, said cases containing warheads with some kind of chemical or biological weapon were delivered to front-line units, including his own, toward the end of last year. He said they were to be used by Fedayeen and units of the Special Republican Guard when the war reached "a critical stage."

The containers, which came from several factories on the outskirts of Baghdad, were delivered to the army by the Fedayeen and were distributed to the front-line units under cover of darkness.

Also, where are the weapons themselves? Why have none been found with all the man-hours of searching. This is unverifiable hearsay.

[Skittles]

7. yeah

sure

[Pinko Commie]

8. Gee, I wonder if the next October Surprise...

...will be the sudden appearance of WMD, about in time for the election?

No, that's just un-Amerikan of me.