Holy shit.

Russia tied to Iraq's missing arms
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned.

John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, "almost certainly" removed the high-explosive material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad.

"The Russians brought in, just before the war got started, a whole series of military units," Mr. Shaw said. "Their main job was to shred all evidence of any of the contractual arrangements they had with the Iraqis. The others were transportation units."

Mr. Shaw, who was in charge of cataloging the tons of conventional arms provided to Iraq by foreign suppliers, said he recently obtained reliable information on the arms-dispersal program from two European intelligence services that have detailed knowledge of the Russian-Iraqi weapons collaboration.

Most of Saddam's most powerful arms were systematically separated from other arms like mortars, bombs and rockets, and sent to Syria and Lebanon, and possibly to Iran, he said.

The Russian involvement in helping disperse Saddam's weapons, including some 380 tons of RDX and HMX, is still being investigated, Mr. Shaw said.

The RDX and HMX, which are used to manufacture high-explosive and nuclear weapons, are probably of Russian origin, he said.

Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita could not be reached for comment.

The disappearance of the material was reported in a letter Oct. 10 from the Iraqi government to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Disclosure of the missing explosives Monday in a New York Times story was used by the Democratic presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry, who accused the Bush administration of failing to secure the material.
Al-Qaqaa, a known Iraqi weapons site, was monitored closely, Mr. Shaw said.

"That was such a pivotal location, Number 1, that the mere fact of [special explosives] disappearing was impossible," Mr. Shaw said. "And Number 2, if the stuff disappeared, it had to have gone before we got there."

The Pentagon disclosed yesterday that the Al-Qaqaa facility was defended by Fedayeen Saddam, Special Republican Guard and other Iraqi military units during the conflict. U.S. forces defeated the defenders around April 3 and found the gates to the facility open, the Pentagon said in a statement yesterday.

A military unit in charge of searching for weapons, the Army's 75th Exploitation Task Force, then inspected Al-Qaqaa on May 8, May 11 and May 27, 2003, and found no high explosives that had been monitored in the past by the IAEA.

The Pentagon said there was no evidence of large-scale movement of explosives from the facility after April 6.

"The movement of 377 tons of heavy ordnance would have required dozens of heavy trucks and equipment moving along the same roadways as U.S. combat divisions occupied continually for weeks prior to and subsequent to the 3rd Infantry Division's arrival at the facility," the statement said.

The statement also said that the material may have been removed from the site by Saddam's regime.

According to the Pentagon, U.N. arms inspectors sealed the explosives at Al-Qaqaa in January 2003 and revisited the site in March and noted that the seals were not broken.

It is not known whether the inspectors saw the explosives in March. The U.N. team left the country before the U.S.-led invasion began March 20, 2003.

A second defense official said documents on the Russian support to Iraq reveal that Saddam's government paid the Kremlin for the special forces to provide security for Iraq's Russian arms and to conduct counterintelligence activities designed to prevent U.S. and Western intelligence services from learning about the arms pipeline through Syria. (*Holeeeee shit!*)

The Russian arms-removal program was initiated after Yevgeny Primakov, the former Russian intelligence chief, could not persuade Saddam to give in to U.S. and Western demands, this official said.

A small portion of Iraq's 650,000 tons to 1 million tons of conventional arms that were found after the war were looted after the U.S.-led invasion, Mr. Shaw said. Russia was Iraq's largest foreign supplier of weaponry, he said.

However, the most important and useful arms and explosives appear to have been separated and moved out as part of carefully designed program. "The organized effort was done in advance of the conflict," Mr. Shaw said.

The Russian forces were tasked with moving special arms out of the country.

Mr. Shaw said foreign intelligence officials believe the Russians worked with Saddam's Mukhabarat intelligence service to separate out special weapons, including high explosives and other arms and related technology, from standard conventional arms spread out in some 200 arms depots.

The Russian weapons were then sent out of the country to Syria, and possibly Lebanon in Russian trucks, Mr. Shaw said.

Mr. Shaw said he believes that the withdrawal of Russian-made weapons and explosives from Iraq was part of plan by Saddam to set up a "redoubt" in Syria that could be used as a base for launching pro-Saddam insurgency operations in Iraq.

The Russian units were dispatched beginning in January 2003 and by March had destroyed hundreds of pages of documents on Russian arms supplies to Iraq while dispersing arms to Syria, the second official said.

Besides their own weapons, the Russians were supplying Saddam with arms made in Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria and other Eastern European nations, he said.

"Whatever was not buried was put on lorries and sent to the Syrian border," the defense official said.

Documents reviewed by the official included itineraries of military units involved in the truck shipments to Syria. The materials outlined in the documents included missile components, MiG jet parts, tank parts and chemicals used to make chemical weapons, the official said.

The director of the Iraqi government front company known as the Al Bashair Trading Co. fled to Syria, where he is in charge of monitoring arms holdings and funding Iraqi insurgent activities, the official said.

Also, an Arabic-language report obtained by U.S. intelligence disclosed the extent of Russian armaments. The 26-page report was written by Abdul Tawab Mullah al Huwaysh, Saddam's minister of military industrialization, who was captured by U.S. forces May 2, 2003.

The Russian "spetsnaz" or special-operations forces were under the GRU military intelligence service and organized large commercial truck convoys for the weapons removal, the official said.

Regarding the explosives, the new Iraqi government reported that 194.7 metric tons of HMX, or high-melting-point explosive, and 141.2 metric tons of RDX, or rapid-detonation explosive, and 5.8 metric tons of PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate, were missing.

The material is used in nuclear weapons and also in making military "plastic" high explosive.

Defense officials said the Russians can provide information on what happened to the Iraqi weapons and explosives that were transported out of the country. Officials believe the Russians also can explain what happened to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs.(Why is that not the headline?!?)

Oh yeah, and did I mention?

Holy SHIT.

That's not to say this 100% true... but damn, it's pretty weird this coming out the last week of elections.

Shall i begin the countdown to WW3 yet?

It's gonna be really interesting to see where this goes...if it develops.

unnamed sources suck balls. And I would be more convinced if the reporter saw the documents. It doesn't sound as if he did.

They do. But, y'know, let's wait to hear the Russians' side. I imagine Putin's little red phone was rining its little red ass off at last night.

Everybody wants in on this action!



Armed Group Claims to Have Iraq Explosives
The Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq Oct 28, 2004 — An armed group claimed in a video Thursday to have obtained a large amount of explosives missing from a munitions depot facility in Iraq and threatened to use them against foreign troops.

A group calling itself Al-Islam's Army Brigades, Al-Karar Brigade, said it had coordinated with officers and soldiers of "the American intelligence" to obtain a "huge amount of the explosives that were in the al-Qaqaa facility."

The claim couldn't be independently verified. The speaker was surrounded by masked, armed men standing in front of a black banner with the group's name on it in the tape obtained by Associated Press Television News.

"We promise God and the Iraqi people that we will use it against the occupation forces and those who cooperate with them in the event of these forces threatening any Iraqi city," the man added.

[...]

Is this the new Kerry 527?

The timing of the release of this news scares the living daylights out of me... The election is less than a week away

I don't want to draw any conclusions whatsoever just as yet, but...

ha, yeah maybe.

Not to say the article isn't true, although I am skeptical, but is anyone else not the least bit surprised where the article originated? The Washingon Times? This would be a different story if it came from the Post.

Let's just say that the Washington Times is hardly the bastion of non-partisan journalism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times

Well this doesn't help clear anything up, but I'll post it nevertheless.


Russia slams report linking it to Iraq’s missing explosives
(AFP)

28 October 2004


MOSCOW - Russia on Thursday slammed as “made-up nonsenseâ€

Holy Shit

See. I didn't even realise this was the Times rather than the Post. I just assumed Post (basically because I didn't know about the other and I was careless when reading/browsing)

Isn't Putin supporting Bush? hmmm first Iran supports him, then a country that may have moved wmd to an enemy...and they said the french supporting kerry was so bad!?

How much spin can US new agencies put on things. First they blame Saddam for gassing his own people but neglect to go in depth to see where he aquired those chemicals from. Now they bring this out and the sheep jump at the chance to try and make it out that their president isn't a tool and isn't to blame for the mess that is Iraq.

Bush should take a walk down a main street in Iraq to show the troops that it is a safe place to be liberating. I mean they would throw flowers at his feet wouldn't they?

Why cant we all just, just get along?

As long as their are rich people on the planet wanting to get richer this will never, ever, happen.

I don't really know what information a Deputy Secretary of State is supposed to be privy to, but I thought this little blurb was interesting.


http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/0/28.html?id_issue=10715486

No information Russia moved Iraq explosive - Washington

MOSCOW. Oct 28 (Interfax) - Washington has no information to indicate that Russia helped the former Iraqi regime transport explosives out of the country, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told journalists on Thursday.

"I never came across this type of information," he said.

"I suppose the official Pentagon representative already made a statement that he has no such information," Armitage said.

good idea, i mean they love us so much they should throw this administration a ticker tape parade! We can get Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice, Hadley....all togtether and they can experience the love they keep telling us the ppl of free iraq have for us...i mean it's just a very small % that dislike us according to them so they should have nothing to worry about

Right, I was waiting for State's comment. However, this is Interfax, and it's Russian publication.

From a friend:



Also, important to watch on Nov 1, Monday, next week, day before elections... surprise:

Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is scheduled to appear at the Plenary Session of the United Nations General Assembly on Monday morning.

Don't count this off as something less than it is... it's important, no matter what side you're on, that we watch this. Who knows what else was in the stockpile?

Sometimes, I fear our future.

You two, please offer something other than Bush bashing. (that goes for the Kerryhaters, as well)I assume neither of you would want HMX explosives landing in your downtown area or city hall, or for that matter your living room. This is bigger than the campaign. The last thread on this very important subject was ruined by your... lack of maturity and overall grasp of foriegn affairs (and the fact that I attributed Kerry to a fuck up concerning running with the story).

I'd nicely ask you to shut the fuck up or try being relevant once in awhile.