BREAKING NEWS (If you already know the story, scroll down past the blockquote to see what it inevitably means for the Bush campaign!):
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 …
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."
… 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 …
"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 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. …
"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.
… 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. …
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.
(Spasiba to Joe N)
Unless I am very mistaken, stupid, or naive, this proves beyond a shadow of a doubt what many of us have been saying since the war ended, that George W Bush and Tony Blair never did lie about WMD, nor were they even mistaken about same. It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that, on the contrary, the accusations hurled against the coalition of the willing was filled with hypocrisy, dishonesty, deceit, duplicity, and, yes, betrayal.
(What does Le Monde do with this valuable piece of information? The newspaper of reference — the independent newspaper which, the previous day, had splashed the information of the missing ammunition on the front page, along with a pro-Kerry cartoon — hides it in a filler at the bottom of its list of fillers on the last page of its international news section. (It did much the same six months ago concerning another piece of news indicating that Bush had not lied.) Such is the objectivity of our French "friends" and our European "allies".)
Foes of Bush and of the Iraq war — American and foreign — have been fretting about an October surprise involving the capture of Osama Bin Laden. I have no idea how much willful premeditation went into this latest development, but it shows that the simplistic cowboy and/or his advisors is/are far cleverer than he is/they are given credit for. To spring this five days short of the election is nothing short of brilliant. If they "leaked" it to the Kerry campaign, it makes it but even more of a master stroke. Many, both in America and abroad, were so eager to slam Bush (I should say "to continue their tradition of slamming Bush") that they dived in head first.
And as far as those people who will complain about any Macchiavellism which may (or may not) have been involved, I have a message for them: If you do choose to call this Macchiavallian — as you did choose to rave and rant about Bush's lies — it is time for you to start turning an eye on those who have been castigating Dubya for months and years (i.e., your own selves, your own leaders, and your own media), and turn the spotlight of accusation where it rightfully belongs and where it always has belonged — on yourselves.
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