The U.N. is complaining that U.S. officials allowed U.N. monitored weapons of mass destruction (WMD) equipment to be destroyed and exported as scrap.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) – Less than three months after U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein, American-appointed Iraqi authorities began shipping thousands of tons of scrap metal out of the country, including at least 42 engines from banned missiles, according to a new report from U.N. weapons inspectors circulated Tuesday.
The scrap exports also included equipment that could be used to produce weapons of mass destruction, said the report, which was to be presented to the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday.
The report says export of the materials was handled by the Iraqi Ministry of Trade, which was under the direct supervision of U.S. occupation authorities until June 28, when the Americans handed power to Iraq’s interim government.
The report criticized “the systematic removal” of items subject to U.N. monitoring from a number of sites.
The U.N. inspectors, who are barred from Iraq, said commercial satellite photos show that several important sites once used to manufacture missiles and precursors for chemical weapons have been destroyed or cleaned out. The report also said it was impossible to know what happened to U.N.-monitored equipment with the potential for making banned weapons.Wasn’t that the whole point of the war – to destroy the Iraqi chemical weapons infrastructure?
If the U.N. is saying there was banned weapons and equipment with the potential for making banned weapons in Iraq, doesn’t that validate one of the reasons for removing Saddam’s regime?
Hmm. Could the point actually be:
US has removed and “destroyed” materiel for creation of weapons of mass destruction?
Perhaps the UN is preparing for preemption.
I’m confused. There WERE no weapons or weapons programs so how could we dismantle and export that which doesn’t exist?
And further, isn’t this just another case of the UN being pissy because they were neither needed nor wanted nor heeded?
CBK
I swear, the UN needs to be bulldozed into the Hudson
Tim McNabb
fivehundredwords.com
CBK
There were a few weapons just not stockpiles.
However we found a fair amount of weapons PROGRAMS. We dismantled them.
Paul
I assumed you were not being sarcastic.
Tim,
it may be easier to bulldoze it into the East River. The Hudson is all the way across town. Nevertheless, it should be bulldozed.
Just because something is “scrapped” don’t think it won’t have educational value to the purchaser. A single piece of scrap metal could tell an interested party what alloy was used for a critical part. If you were trying to build a car for the first time, how much information do you think you could gleen by looking at a scrapped car, even one that had been through the crusher?
I suppose I can see the logic if the argument is that we didn’t render the components completely unrecognizable (once we accounted for them, anyway).
But I’ll admit my first reaction about the criticism from the UN was “oh, you guys are still here?”
Ummmmm….Interesting…
Months ago, this was reported as Saddam had shipped out the WMDs and had been dismantling the buildings before during and after the war.
See here. This document also includes a link to the UN document which highlights the details, and it is dated May 28th.
Are the AP news media attempting to head off any claims by the administration that Saddam transported WMDs out of the country by saying it was the new Iraqi government that was doing so?
That said, I am not wholly sure we can draw the conclusions that it was Saddam that shipped them out. The satellite photos they talk about are originals from May 2003 (pre-war) and Feb 2004 (post-war). If we assume the building disappeared any time between then, it could have been Saddam or the new Iraqi government.
However, lets assume for a second it is some kind of WMD facility. If Saddam dismantled and shipped it out, we can assume it was to protect his innocence. What about the US or the new Iraqi government shipping it out?
My thoughts are the WMDs are being gathered in Iraq silently so there is no kind of terrorist treasure hunt looking for WMDs in Iraq. Same reason that Saddams top men were immediately hunted down to prevent them disclosing the WMD locations to ‘insurgents’.
“The report also said it was impossible to know what happened to U.N.-monitored equipment with the potential for making banned weapons.”
The point is that we wanted to prevent Saddam from using these weapons, or to prevent the spread of these weapons or materials to terrorists. This is the same as the problem of the nuclear materials Iraq had – a lot of it just disappeared. As much of the country is now controlled by the insurgents, it is very worrisome to me as to where all of this material went.
This goes to a major criticism of Bush’s “plan” – that they did not think through what might happen if we were not greeted as liberators by everyone.
It’s still just missle parts which “could have” been used in banned (or unbanned) missles and “dual use'” equipment (lathes and mills perhaps? or the ever spooky corosion resistant containers) which could have been used in the production of WMDs. Still a far cry from the 45 minute launch ready capability rhetoric that we were sold prior to the start of the war.
Following the same logic…I have an 83 toyota engine on bricks in my yard which could be used in a car which could be used in a bank robbery. It dosent make me a criminal for having it, led alone justify the cops kicking down my doors and killing my kids.
It’s still just missle parts which “could have” been used in banned (or unbanned) missles and “dual use'” equipment (lathes and mills perhaps? or the ever spooky corosion resistant containers) which could have been used in the production of WMDs. Still a far cry from the 45 minute launch ready capability rhetoric that we were sold prior to the start of the war.
Following the same logic…I have an 83 toyota engine on bricks in my yard which could be used in a car which could be used in a bank robbery. It dosent make me a criminal for having it, led alone justify the cops kicking down my doors and killing my kids.
I swear, the UN needs to be bulldozed into the Hudson
Tim McNabb
fivehundredwords.com
Posted by Tim at September 8, 2004 11:20 AM
I’m your first volunteer to help with such a patriotic
project. I worked in law enforcement in New York City and those folks at the UN live like royalty on someone else’s dime. The bottom line is that they are nothing more than a bunch of thugs and despots.
Wow, X, thanks for giving us a classic example of a Weak Analogy fallacy.
Brian B,
Let me break it down so you can undestand. We, the United States (the world police) kicked down Iraqs door (invaded the country and overthrew the government) and killed the children (somewhere between 10 and 30 thousand Iraqis) because of the iminent threat of WMDs (threat of bank robbery) and all we have found is the 83 toyota engine block in the back yard (rusty shells, rocket engine scrap, corrosion resistant containers, and dual use machinery) with which our administration has tried to justify $200 billion in spending, near 7000 injured soldiers, and 1000+ dead soldiers. Perhaps you could give me an anology that would be closer to the mark?
Thanks,
X
X comes off with…
Ah yes. The bullshit that never dies.
People made fun of Noah, too, right up until they were devastated.
I think it’s a simple case of, where the “WMD” issue and Saddam Hussein were concerned, of some Americans NEEDING to feel in control of “their” universe: and so they diss the war and efforts to prevent another strike against the U.S., by any branch they can grab…”too expensive,” “should have spent the money at home,” “the WMD didn’t exist,” “Saddam wasn’t the one responsible for 09/11,” ladedahdeedah.
*Boom. No one saw it coming! Help us, help us!*
Noah and family have managed to survive the holocaust and even taken along with them survivable pairs of animal species inorder to repopulate the Earth after the Flood, and everyone else perishes. Like I wrote, they laughed at Noah, too, right up until they perished.
I don’t see a person like, say, John Kerry or even John Edwards, floating by with a row boat and a life saver, ready and able to pick up any floating survivers from the Flood.
P.S.: But I DO see Kerry and Edwards discouraging everyone who’ll listen from building an ark. And laughing while people laugh at Noah.
The U.S. had to make a start — as Russia is now realizing, as the U.K. has already realized, as other nations are also aware — at global terrorism by routing out the terrorist organizations where they are and where they are supported, and not wait for the *Boom* or “Flood” event to take place.
Kerry lectures on waiting and waiting and waiting for the event to take place and then to “build alliances” and turn to others in expectation of helps and solutions. With anticipations of “prosecutuing” and “bringing to justice” the very sorts of subhumans responsible for terrorist acts who aren’t prosecutable, who can never be “brought to justice” because they fly huge aircrafts into large buildings, blow themselves up, and otherwise run out before any possible “capture.”
Kerry’s entire approach, supported by his Left base, is that the U.S. is to not act proactively, but to remain available as victim, and then to respond with whatever legal maneuverings someone can manage afterward.
Taking that strategy down to the personal, anyone who’s ever had to pursue a Restraining Order knows that a piece of paper is no life saving tool when a lethal aggressor appears on the doorstep. You can call for help all you can manage to, seek recourse if you survive afterward, but no amount of legal Orders can prevent someone from taking your life if all you have between you and the threat is a piece of paper filed with a Clerk.
You have to take steps to protect your safety and not anticipate or expect someone else to “save” you, under such dire circumstances. The Left in the U.S. — as in France and a few other areas of our world — seem to think some SuperMan will appear to solve the problems after they take place. Instead, it’s smarter to deal with the causes of such hideous threats, to take steps to survive while you can still plan ahead.
The WMD’s that are turning up in scrap yards are old news:
timworstall.typepad.com/timworstall/ 2004/04/iraqi_nuclear_s.html
More importantly, they are nothing to do with the WMD programs which we went to war over. They are things that the UN inspectors found years ago, and tagged and stored. We always knew that Saddam had these things. What’s got people pissed off is that they are being sold to be melted down (a good thing in my view) but in the process of being sold and transported leaves them open to being sold to someone who wants to use rather than scrap them.