On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:38:38 GMT, George Grapman
<sfgeorge@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> mumbled:
>First it was WMDs but Cheney later admitted there were none
None "found"...
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=EACB624F-680F-4296-9D12-49C458BF38C1
Sada recently spoke at the Wednesday Morning Club. This author was
privileged to get to interview Sada on the national radio program
“Hey, Wake Up America” on February 15 – at the invitation of regular
co-hosts Dave Marshall and Scott Crofut.
Sada confounded the conventional wisdom in its every detail: he said
Saddam did possess stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons,
which were trans****ted across the Syrian border by truck and plane in
late 2002.
Before the war, Sada says Saddam invested great planning in hiding his
weapons stash. “He had a committee specifically to hide [WMDs],” Sada
told me. The committee met “until a natural disaster happened in Syria
in 2002,” when Saddam saw his chance.
Sada says Saddam used the dam collapse in northwestern Syria as cover,
sending out jets filled with WMDs – which the world would believe was
humanitarian aid to Iraq’s fellow Ba’athist neighbor and longtime
ally. He tells of WMDs being smuggled out of Iraq in “two ways – over
the ground and air,” in “747s and 18-wheelers.” Although he was
uncertain where in Syria the truck convoy was headed, he said he knew
two 747s full of WMDs – “chemical and biological” – were taken to
“Damascus directly by air.”
He believes the Iraqis made the transfer between September and
November 2002. Though he discounts speculation about the exact date,
he stated, “It [was] for sure, after the natural disaster happened in
Syria.”
He told this author the foiled al-Qaeda plot to strike Amman Jordan in
April 2004 shocked him out of silence. Not only did it prove the
weapons still existed, but that they had the potential to kill tens of
thousands of people. “These weapons have already fallen into the hands
of the terrorists,” Sada said. “20,000 people were supposed to be
killed in this attack. But thank the Jordanians that their
intelligence managed to stop this.” When he heard of this, “I said,
‘Oh my God, these weapons have fallen into the hands of the
terrorists...and then they can use them anywhere in the West, in
America, so I decided to make this known, that this is the story: that
the weapons have gone to Syria by air and by ground, and something
must be done to stop [the rest of] these weapons [from falling] into
the hands of the terrorists.”
When Scott Crofut asked, Sada said he doubted Basher Assad’s Ba’athist
government would use these weapons in a future Middle Eastern
conflict. “To use these weapons would be a disaster,” he said, noting
the strong deterrent effect of Israel’s nuclear program. “I don’t
think the Syrians are thinking of using it, but God knows how they
think.” Syria remains one of a handful of nations never to have signed
the Chemical Weapons Convention.
If Sada’s story is true, it would lend credence to the testimony of
others in the intelligence community that Saddam’s WMDs were ****pped
to Syria, dating essentially from the beginning of Operation Iraqi
Freedom.
As far back as 2003, Lt. Gen. James Clapper stated WMDs have been
trucked to Syria.
In April 2004, Jordan’s King Abdallah claimed the 20 tons of chemical
weapons seized in Amman and belonging to al-Qaeda agents were
manufactured in Iraq.
WMD inspector David Kay and others said Syria acted as a depository
for Saddam’s WMDs.
Former Justice Department official John Loftus made a strong argument
that significant deposits of WMDs are buried in Syria.
Israeli Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon made similar statements in
April 2004 and December 2005.
Last month, FrontPageMag.com columnist Ken Timmerman detailed a
briefing given by former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense John A. Shaw
confirming Russian involvement. Russian General Yevgeni Primakov
oversaw an operation known as “Sarandar” (“Emergency Exit”), in which
Spetsnaz and other Russian assets convoyed Saddam’s weapons across the
Syrian border.
Sada also testified to a Russian role in the WMD evacuation. “There is
no doubt to me that the Russians were helpful,” he told me. And the
aid went beyond menial labor; Sada quoted recently released
transcripts of conversations in which Saddam and Tariq Aziz discussed
tying up United Nations efforts through the diplomatic pressure of
their business partners. “There was a lot of interference by the
Russians and French” in the UN, General Sada said.
In addition being an internal Iraqi eyewitness, Gen. Sada adds his
personal integrity to the charges made by distinguished intelligence
authorities.
How much integrity? Ask Col. David Eberly (USAF, Ret.), the
highest-ranking POW of the first Gulf War. Brought out of retirement,
Sada – who is an Assyrian Christian and member of the Presbyterian
Church – was charged by Saddam Hussein with overseeing captured U.S.
servicemen. Saddam Hussein’s son, Qusai, ordered Sada to declare all
American POWs war criminals and have them executed; he refused but
says he changed Iraqi policy when he convinced Qusai his own family
would be targeted in retaliation for violating the Geneva Convention.
According to Saddam’s Secrets, it was not the first time Sada had
prevailed upon the Hussein family. In November 1990, he had a
“one-hour, 41-minute discussion” with Saddam Hussein, in which the
dictator plotted to unleash a chemical and biological attack on Israel
at the outset of the Gulf War. Sada says Hussein planned to send his
Migs and Mirage aircraft through Syrian and Jordanian airspace
“without telling Jordan and the Syrians.” Sada said he convinced the
despot against the move by telling him Iraq’s jets would be caught on
radar and shot down, inflicting damage on his ally nations. Further,
“Israel will have now to retaliate and use their nuclear weapons
against Iraq.” This, he said, convinced Saddam to reconsider.
Saddam, he said, was a master at hiding his intentions and his
weapons. When asked whether U.S. air strikes had decimated Saddam’s
weapons program – as President Clinton suggested several months ago –
he replied, “A lot of this was also destroyed by American air
attacks.” However, he added, “many [WMDs] were hid.”
“To the best of my knowledge, there are still two big bunkers of
concrete” in Iraq containing WMDs, although “Saddam flooded them.”
Although he says he has revealed the location to American military
officials, he fears they may yet fall into the hands of Saddam
loyalists or foreign jihadists if the United States withdraws
prematurely.
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