O.k., here’s the money quote from back in 2004 that I’ve been looking for…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/25/wirq25.xml

“David Kay, the former head of the coalition’s hunt for Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, yesterday claimed that part of Saddam Hussein’s secret weapons programme was hidden in Syria.
…
We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons,” he said. “But we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam’s WMD programme. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved.”

(Can someone explain the seemingly contradictory “not a large stockpile” and “a lot of” when applied to the same “material?” Sounds like he’s hedging.)

And an analysis by Condi in response to criticism by Rockefeller (D), back when she was somewhat sane.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/10/politics/main1991104.shtml?CMP=ILC-SearchStories

“The notion that, somehow, someone who had caused more than a million deaths in the Iran-Iraq war, someone who had invaded Kuwait, and we believe, was probably on his way to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, somebody who threatened his neighbors every day, who shot at our aircraft, who had broken out of an embargo and was using his oil wealth to build up an arsenal of weapons, that this is not a
Rice said.”

And, naturally, I take issue with her odd choice of the adjective “odd” to descripe Rocky’s loony position.
“The notion that, somehow, someone who had caused more than a million deaths in the Iran-Iraq war, someone who had invaded Kuwait, and we believe, was probably on his way to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, somebody who threatened his neighbors every day, who shot at our aircraft, who had broken out of an embargo and was using his oil wealth to build up an arsenal of weapons, that this is not a threat, in the world’s most volatile region — I just think it’s very, frankly, odd analysis,” Rice said.”

(And, naturally, I take issue with her odd choice of the adjective “odd” to descripe Rocky’s loony position. Equivocators must equivocate, after all.)

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“Quite frankly if I don’t see a video tape or actually hear the person’s voice saying the words then I don’t readily accept it.” – Aye Chihuahua

That is a good point, and usually a good idea to heed, even when the source is reliable if for no other reason than it is difficult to defend irrefutably. However, I have given other examples that are well documented to show she ain’t playin with a full deck. And, no offense taken.

As to the “convoys,” you will also note what I quoted David Kay, the lead investigator after the invasion. I repeat for your information…

“Baghdad was actually becoming more dangerous in the last two years than even we realized. Saddam was not controlling the society any longer. In the marketplace of terrorism and of WMD, Iraq well could have been that supplier if the war had not intervened.”
————————————————–
2. Deliberate dispersal and destruction of material and documentation related to weapons programs began pre-conflict and ran trans-to-post conflict;
…
4. Some WMD personnel crossed borders in the pre/trans conflict period and may have taken evidence and even weapons-related materials with them;”(see above for refs)

I’ve been following this and know that there is not enough information to give a detailed accounting of what happened, but Saddam DID transfer material out, and I think we can be pretty sure that he was not just trying to protect his stamp collection.

I have more links, but they are on my other computer which is down, probably for a while. Needless to say, Saddam was in bed with the terrorists, he had every intention to reaquire whatever weapons he had lost and had as many plans in place as he could to effect that as soon as sanctions were lifted. He did have and was trying to acquire more materials for WMD even up to right before the war. It’s a good thing he’s gone, and getting rid of him was the right thing to do.

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Aye Chi

Those convoys and such you mention are discussed in the UNMOVIC quarterly report. It also documents finding proscribed missiles, acquired by Saddam *after* 1998, and abandoned in a Netherlands junk yard during the time of OIF. This is not exactly a group that is pro-liberate Iraq.

The media may have been “full of stories”, but they made sure the public believed Saddam was merely moving his palace patio furniture, and not WMDs. It best suits their agenda that way.

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yonason,

I hope that you didn’t get the impression that I am defending Rice on every decision she has ever made. I am most certainly not doing that.

I am however pointing out that the MSM is deeply invested in making this administration look bad in any way they can, whether by printing accurate stories or by embellishing, twisting, stretching, or spinning.

Quite frankly if I don’t see a video tape or actually hear the person’s voice saying the words then I don’t readily accept it.

The Internet is full of false quotes and false stories all in the interest of shaping and molding the story.

Back to the WMD issue:

In the days leading up to the beginning of the invasion the news was full of stories regarding convoys and trucks scurrying about along the borders of Iraq.

There were recon photos from spy satellites which supported the theory that those weapons were literally being spirited away in the night. That info and those pictures were released long, long before we got in there and found basically zero.

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Sort of a moot point at the moment, Curt…. but when I posted the “no view”, the content post about WMD’s still hadn’t shown up after I hit the submit button. Thus I couldn’t “view” it to see if it needed editing.

I added the UPDATE at 1:16 when I saw my post #14 had appeared. But by then, it didn’t give me the ability to edit it anyway. Weird, eh?

Got the “hotlink” snafu fixed?

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Not sure what you mean by no view for the post Mata…

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Haven’t got a clue if I need to edit, Curt. There was no “view” for the post to check for errors, guy. So I guess we lives with whats we got, eh?

UPDATE at 1:16… I see my “repeat post” (#14) has arrived….

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@Curt

THANKS

…and i noticed the increased editing time. That could be very useful for updates, etc., Nice.

…so, it occurred to me to go up to my previous post (#12) to change something, and … it can no longer be edited, and it’s not 6 hrs yet. Do you need to change some process other than the clock that shows how much time we should have left?

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Curt, having the same problem… a few of my posts aren’t showing up. Perhaps it has to do with hotlinks in the content. I posted the first version late yesterday afternoon via the flashy WordPress version. The second one, I tried posting just a few minutes ago using the WordPress Default version.

If you find me in your spam filter, eliminate one of the duplicates under this “WMD” thread, please.

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BTW, Curt… I posted what I’m repeating below last night… never showed up. So if it shows up in the spam filter, you can delete. Don’t know if it was a IE6 seucurity update I did yesterday or what.

Now… as to “skeptical” on the WMDs and Syria. An excerpt from Georges Sada’s book, Saddam’s Secrets:

In June 2004, Demetrius Perricos, who serves as president of UNMOVIC, confirmed these and many other facts in a report to the UNSC. He made it clear that Saddam had smuggled WMDs out of Iraq before, during, and after the war. In his report, Perricos provided evidence that documents recovered in Jordan, Turkey and as far away as the Netherlands, revealed that thousands of tons of biological warheads ahd been shipped out of Iraq to other countries in the Middle East. And along with chemical and biological components there were nuclear reactor vessels and fermenters for preparing chemical and biological warheads.

Perricos didn’t mention the Syrian connection, but field reports from Iraqi informants and information supplied by the Israeli intelligence service, The Mossad, confirmed that memebers of Syria’s Baath Party were very much involved. And two months prior to the UNMOVIC report, US officials received word from the Jordanian intelligence service that they had broken up a plot by Al Qaeda to explode a large chemical weapon in the center of Amman, Jordan.

The thwarted Jordanian plot mentioned by Sada above was in CNN news April 26th (duplicated here, approx 5th story down on this Emergency.com site)

I’ve blogged on, and had the link to, the UNMOVIC May 2004 quarterly report on my blog for years. Naturally the press doesn’t care to confirm that UNMOVIC documented much that confirms Sada’s later claims via UN sources. That’s to inconventient as it doesn’t fit with their indoctrination of misinformation over the years.

So color me not so skeptical. But it matters whit. For after all this time of media propaganda and lies, it would be impossible to reverse the electorate’s beliefs. They’ve been told the sky is green by the media. No proof of it being blue will change that.

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