BTW, this is now on the front page of The Chronicle now, so if it's already filtered all the way down there by now it must be fairly well assumed to be official.
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=353552003 Or maybe the British. In case someone takes my remarks seriously. whatever the case, they could have obtained this fraudulently or illegally and I am not taking sides either way with respect to alleged German, French, Russian arm sales to Iraq...
The place was apparently well camoflouged, guarded by armed soldiers, and surrounded by electric fence...seems pretty fishy.
A followup on the story mentioned by Woofer. <a HREF="http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/24-3-19103-0-47-6.html">Black Watch find cruise missiles in huge arms cache at heliport</a> <i>.........SCOTTISH troops from the Black Watch battle group yesterday discovered a huge cache of weapons which could show that Saddam Hussein's regime is in breach of UN sanctions. Two Al Harith anti-ship cruise missiles supplied last year by Russia and explosive components from a Hampshire firm were discovered at a bunker complex sited at the As Zubayr civilian heliport south of Basra, in southern Iraq. The soldiers found 24 reinforced underground bunkers and 48 arms storage sheds containing hundreds of thousands of rocket propelled grenades, landmines, machine gun am-munition, fuses, and detonators, as well as the missiles. Most of the site has been cordoned off until experts arrive to clear booby traps and use detectors to see if anything more sinister is hidden in the depot. One Al Harith, a long-range sea-skimming missile which could threaten allied warships in the Gulf, was on a stand awaiting the fitting of its rocket motor. Someone had drawn a shark's face on its warhead. Another was still in its crate in another bunker. Both weapons had Russian Cyrillic characters stencilled on their sides and were dated 2002. A strict UN arms embargo on Iraq has been enforced since 1991. The British-made explosive components, believed to be fuses for detonators, were in small boxes stamped "Wallop Industries Limited, Middle Wallop, Hampshire" and carried danger signs and a prohibition on the product being carried by air. There were no dates on the cases. In the bunker containing the exposed Al Harith, there was also a larger missile, between 30 and 40ft long, still in its shipping container. This was being left for bomb disposal teams. It also had Russian lettering. Lieutenant Angus Watson, from Methil, Fife, who was in charge of the platoon which found the haul of high explosives, said: "There is enough kit here to outfit a brigade. It's an astonishing amount of ammunition. We also found deserted Iraqi tanks and personnel carriers when we moved in, but the garrison put here to defend the depot had legged it. The whole complex was wide open, with the doors of the hardened bunkers unlocked. Local civilians had begun looting." The heliport perimeter was dotted with hastily-abandoned slit trenches and machine gun positions. American psychological war-fare leaflets urging Iraqi troops not to resist littered the floors of most of the bunkers. One leaflet showed Saddam and then a weeping mother with a dead child. Another depicted a chemical plant before and after it had been flattened by bombing. "From the number of limpet mines and some of the other armaments found so far, it seems to have been a naval storage depot," said Lieutenant Watson. <b>"It makes you wonder what chance a couple of hundred UN inspectors had of finding anything damning in a country this big. On the surface, this was, after all, supposed to be a civilian heliport."</b>..........</i>
sosorox, Are you going to stop Bush bashing? Not to sound like an ass, I just want to know that I can actually influence someone on this board. Fighting, even verbally, can be tiring. And speaking to unreasonable people (You are not one of them) certainly doesn't help.
Unless the U.S. camouflaged the place, surrounded it with fences and bombs, and paid off an Iraqi soldier to act like he's a general protecting the Plant, I have a hard time thinking this is faked and propoganda. You can just whip up a base like that overnight with chemicals just to lie and have a reason to go to war. The government is good, but not that good. I mean you would have to be one serious miracle worker to pull something like this out of your @ss!
Hey, they managed to fake that whole 9/11 thing at the Pentagon on the fly.... or so the French would have us believe. In all seriousness, though, I think some folks would probably like to see some pictures from the plant or something that could verify that it is, indeed, a chemical weapons plant and that it does, in fact, have banned weapons inside. That would be something beyond taking the word of the U.S. Military. I'm not saying that's what I need. I'm just saying that it is different to hear a report (or even see the building, etc) and verifying that it is what we say it is. If that makes any sense at all.
It would probably be better to send the pro-war people to Iraq. The anti-war people are anti-war after all. I've never had a doubt that Iraq has WMD so no surprise here and I'm still anti-war here. I don't find Iraq's WMD any more of a threat to the US than Iran's, or Pakistan's, or Syria's, or whoever else. Of course I'm no Colin Powell so hey if I could read Bin Laden's mind like Powell can maybe I would think differently.
I didn't think any anti-war protestors believed that Iraq was Chemical and biological weapons free. I think most people including anti-war protestors knew that Iraq had the weapons. I think the protestors, at least those I feel the most aligned with just felt that the decision to go to war was rushed, and the diplomacy involved and coalition building diplomacy was handled poorly. I never doubted that Saddam was lied, had WMD, and was trying to pull the wool over people's eyes. As an Iraqi defector, the scientist who worked on their nuke program said, "Of course the U.S. knows they have WMD and facilities to produce them. They still have the receipts." I hope that this is one of the sights Saddam had, and that it's shut down forever. My problem with many of those aligned with the Pro-war camp is that they seem to buy into the mischaracterization put out by some that anti-war protestors are pro Iraq, or don't believe Saddam is a bad guy, or they think Saddam is upfront and honest.
Hypocrite! Its ok for you anti war people to hide behind the bill of rights but if some ones opinion differs from you they should leave the country. Typical tree hugger. And back atcha.
While were on this subject, you and all the other anti war people should be thank your lucky stars that you live in a county that allows you protest. You do know what happens to iraqi's if they speak out about their government don't you? You should have to live under that kind of opperssion for a while.
Hans Blix and his troupe of headless chickens wouldn't identify horse dung even if it is right under their noses. UN inspectors visited Al-Najaf on January 8 How can you miss a frigin' hundred-acre compound camouflaged against aerial detection? Do you trust your security to these bleeping idiots?
In there defense(not they they still shouldn't have found this) the factory is reportedly not in AL-Najaf but a good ways outside the city. If it was hidden like the reports say it was then it is quite possible that the UN inspectors just didn't know it was there.
No that makes perfect sense. Unfortunately the Plant seems to be empty, so I knew it was to good to be true. Either Iraq moved the chemicals, or it was a decoy. Either way, the fact that there's a chemical plany there at all near Al-Najaf I think raises a red flag. People forget, this isn't just the U.S. military reporting this, Britain and Spain are as well.
