The Associated Press is reporting, with shock, that the UN reports missing chemical, biological and missile equipment from the sites that were being monitored by UN weapons inspectors in Iraq. Sacre Bleu!! Say it isn't so!!
U.N. satellite imagery experts have determined that material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles has been removed from 109 sites in Iraq, U.N. weapons inspectors said in a report obtained Thursday.
U.N. inspectors have been blocked from returning to Iraq since the U.S.-led war in 2003 so they have been using satellite photos to see what happened to the sites that were subject to U.N. monitoring because their equipment had both civilian and military uses.
In the report to the U.N. Security Council, acting chief weapons inspector Demetrius Perricos said he's reached no conclusions about who removed the items or where they went. He said it could have been moved elsewhere in Iraq, sold as scrap, melted down or purchased.
I have a couple questions. In the first place, wasn't it the contention of the anti-war folks that Saddam was just a big lovable teddy bear who had no desire to make biological or chemical weapons, and we were big meanies for attacking? Then why did he have all that equipment?
A third of the chemical items removed came from the Qaa Qaa industrial complex south of Baghdad which the report said "was among the sites possessing the highest number of dual-use production equipment," whose fate is now unknown." Significant quantities of missing material were also located at the Fallujah II and Fallujah III facilities north of the city, which was besieged last year.
Before the first Gulf War in 1991, those facilities played a major part in the production of precursors for Iraq's chemical warfare program.
I'm sure he'd never use it for weapons production - except he did, and gassed the Kurds with it. Though caches of actual chemical weapons have not been uncovered, the materials for production clearly have, and that is essentially a WMD find. Or did Iraq not intend to ever use them again in that way?
Second, after reading carefully the entire article I can find no evidence - none whatsoever - that the reporter asked the people who might know what happened to the equipment about the allegation. No discussions with the Coalition Command, no queries with the Iraqi government or security forces. And if not the reporter then perhaps Mr. Perricos could have gotten some information from those sources to include in the report.
After the 377 ton Al Qaa Qaa weapons story that the NY Times reported in late October to influence the election, a story which I touched on here, here, here and here, and which has disappeared from media radar screens since, I would have thought such a contention would have been more thoroughly researched before printing it. This is not news if it's either untrue (this is satellite imaging, after all), or if there is a solid explanation. Perhaps it would have been worth questioning the people who might be able to shed some light on it. As it stands this is just the UN report published in the news.
So I'll reserve judgement, and wait for the explanation and/or refutation that are likely to follow. But the "No WMD" people can relax. The UN weapons inspection team has confirmed there was plenty of capacity for chemical and biological weapon, and missile production in Iraq.
UPDATE: Rick Moran, at Right Wing Nut House noticed also.
