Inspectors: Iraq Weapons Sites Destroyed http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=sto...on_re_mi_ea/un_weapons_inspectors_1&printer=1 By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer UNITED NATIONS - A number of sites in Iraq (news - web sites) known to have contained equipment and material that could have been used to produce banned weapons and long-range missiles have been either cleaned out or destroyed, U.N. weapons inspectors said Monday. The inspectors' report said they didn't know whether the items, which had been monitored by the United Nations were at the sites during the U.S.-led war in Iraq. U.N. inspectors were pulled from Iraq just before the war began in March 2003 and the United States has refused to allow them to return, instead deploying its own teams to search for weapons of mass destruction. "It is possible that some of the materials may have been removed from Iraq by looters of sites and sold as scrap," the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission said in its quarterly report to the U.N. Security Council. UNMOVIC said its experts and a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which was responsible for dismantling Iraq's nuclear program, were jointly investigating items from Iraq that were discovered in a scrap yard in the Dutch port of Rotterdam. Through photographs taken during an initial IAEA investigation, UNMOVIC said it discovered that SA-2 engines used in Iraq's Al Samoud 2 banned missile program were among the scrap. Commission experts examined one missile engine at the site and discovered from the serial number that it had been tagged by U.N. inspectors in the past and had not been declared as having been fired. Representatives at the scrapyard indicated that between five and a dozen similar engines had been seen there in January and February, and that more could have passed through the yard unnoticed, the report said. Company staff said other items made of stainless steel and other corrosion-resistant metal alloys bearing the inscription "Iraq" or "Baghdad" had been observed in shipments delivered from the Middle East since November 2003, it said. UNMOVIC experts examined a number of items with a portable metal analyzer and determined that they were composed of heat-resistant inconel and titanium — both subject to monitoring because of their possible dual-use in legitimate civilian activities and banned weapons production, the report said. Despite cooperation from the Netherlands and the company, UNMOVIC said it wasn't possible to determine how many engines and how much other material previously subject to monitoring in Iraq may have been sent out of the country. It said its investigation was continuing. The report said high-resolution satellite photos had detected that some sites subject to UNMOVIC monitoring had been cleaned up and equipment and material had been removed. "In other areas, whole buildings that had previously contained equipment and materials subject to monitoring had been completely dismantled," it said. The report showed satellite photos of a storage site in Shumokh, about than 10 miles northwest of downtown Baghdad, taken in late May 2003 and late February 2004. UNMOVIC said that during the period between the photos, scrap items and other material was removed from one area and several buildings were demolished. UNMOVIC spokesman Ewen Buchanan said the Shumokh site and the adjacent Ibn Al-Batyr facility contained biological, chemical, and missile-related items subject to U.N. monitoring. These included fermenters, a freeze drier, distillation columns, parts of missiles, and a 130-gallon "jacketed reactor vessel" which could be used in biological or chemical weapons production, he said. "All sorts of sites seem to have been systematically dismantled, and it's not clear to us what has happened to items and material that was subject to U.N. monitoring," Buchanan said. "It creates a headache in trying to keep an accurate picture of what happened to everything." The report noted that the U.S. inspection team — the Iraq Survey Group now led by UNMOVIC's former deputy director Charles Duelfer — has not provided the United Nations with any official information on its work or the results of its investigations. Nonetheless, UNMOVIC said it was evaluating Iraq's procurement network during the period from 1999 to 2002 when U.N. inspectors were not allowed to return and had discovered a sophisticated network to obtain foreign materials, equipment and technology. "To date, UNMOVIC has found no evidence that these were used for proscribed chemical or biological weapon purposes," it said.
If he hadn't heard the cries of "Wag the Dog" from the GOP, maybe we could have gotten OBL. Or, if GWB hadn't all but removed our military forces from the War on Terror, we could have gotten him. There is plenty of blame to go around and nobody who wants to take responsibility.
Clinton never did refuse a credible offer of Osama being handed over to him. Unless there was a new one that I hadn't heard about. Clinton did refuse to work through the middle man who wasn't reliable, and couldn't really offer OBL anyway. That's been well layed out.
Thank God. Now I can sleep at night. It has been a hard two and a half years wondering when those Iraqi wmd would kill me and my family while peacefully sleeping. PTL and his messenger,George Bush, for finally allwowing me to sleep.
While an article of religious faith among some, most reliable sources have discredited this rumor as having never happened.
I've heard audio tape on various programs (Hannity for one) disputing your claims. He flat out admitted it. I guess now you are going to say it was an impersonator.
I can't really speak to the claim you are talking about unless I heard it. As for Hanity he's full of it. The guy who made the discredited offer of OBL to Clinton now works for Fox News. The offer was investigated by Sandy Berger and it was found to not be credible. If Clinton was talking about being offered Bin Laden and wishing we could have gotten him, then that would be consistent with what we know happened. But again, I can't comment without having heard Clinton's tape.
I have no clue what you are talking about and consider it suspect, but anyway, you're wrong, FB is right. This has been debunked on many levels, many times.
More missed opportunities by your Clinton administration: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4540958/ I love this line:
And here's a link to the audio tape you don't want to hear: http://www.newsmax.com/audio/BILLVH.mp3 Care to comment now?
Yes, that comment has nothing to do with being offered Bin Laden on a silver platter. Indeed he had been hearing that the Sudaneese were willing to hand him over. After that Sandy Berger investigated the offer, and it wasn't credible. Obviously he wishes now that he could have gotten OBL. He may have been able to get OBL, but it would have had nothing to do with this mythical offer by the Sudanese to give him to us or anyone else.
Of course he said that. It's called "saving face". Vanity Fair Credits NewsMax for Clinton's bin Laden Woes http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/5/12/232404.shtml The June edition of Vanity Fair is hitting newsstands and it credits NewsMax.com for most of Clinton's post-9/11 woes. While ex-President Clinton has managed to rise above most of the scandals that characterized his White House years, Vanity Fair magazine says that the episode that continues to damage his legacy most is a recording by NewsMax.com of Clinton's admission that he turned down a deal for Osama bin Laden's arrest in 1996. "The hardest charge to dismiss is the most devastating," reports Vanity Fair in its June issue. "Five years before 9/11, it was said, Osama bin Laden had been presented to Bill Clinton on a silver platter, and he refused to take him." Before NewsMax released its smoking-gun tape, Vanity Fair says, Clinton officials such as former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger denied up and down that Sudan had any intention of extraditing bin Laden. Others, such as U.S. Ambassador to Sudan Tim Carney, however, claimed otherwise. "Who was right hadn't been resolved when Clinton addressed a businessman's group on Long Island on February 15, 2002," the magazine said. "A tape recording obtained by the right wing Web site NewsMax.com captured Clinton saying the following: "'Mr. bin Laden used to live in Sudan. He was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991, then he went to Sudan. And we'd been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start meeting with them again. "'They released him. At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America, so I did not bring him here, because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America. "'So I pleaded with the Saudis to take take him, 'cause they could have. But they thought it was a hot potato.'" Though there was ample intelligence and evidence that bin Laden indeed had been behind attacks against Americans, contradicting Clinton's claim, Vanity Fair noted, "Although the [Clinton] admission passed without notice in most of the mainstream media, the damage was done. "According to a January 2002 USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll, the percentage of Americans who thought history would rate Clinton's presidency as 'poor' was more than half again what it had been the year before." Two years later, the infamous tape continues to haunt the Democratic Party's most popular figure. Vanity Fair notes that when Clinton was grilled about his bin Laden admission by the 9/11 Commission last month, he called it "a misquote," apparently hoping the commissioners didn't know it was on tape. As NewsMax noted at the time, after 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey compared Clinton's testimony to his February 2002 remarks, he told a radio interviewer, "[This is] much different from what we heard." Kudos to Vanity Fair for covering the bombshell the mainstream press has tried to bury for more than two years. We think it's an important part of the historical backdrop to America's darkest day ever - and we trust Vanity Fair's readers will think so too.
The article from VF, nor anything NewsMax has printed so far has given credibility or evidence contradicting the evidence that the offer was not legit.
you keep saying that...but what evidence are you talking about? not trying to be a jerk here...but all i'm seeing is Faos post source after source giving credence to the story...and your response is just to say, "no..it didn't happen...they found out later that wasn't right. it's been discredited."
to paraphrase Dil, "Details, baby, details..." have you any evidence to back up this claim other than a blind assertion that it's not legit, and the hosannas from the fisher chorus?
Sorry the evidence has been posted in at least three other threads. Apparently a lot of folks didn't read it then. I will post it AGAIN later this week or weekend, unless someone else wants to beat me to it. Or someone can maybe search back and see if they find one of the other threads and link it. Either way is fine with me.
