as a danish-american, and proud person of pallor, i'm deeply disturbed by the implications of this report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3639977.stm -- Denmark reveals Iraq arms secrets Mr Rasmussen says the reports vinidcate him Denmark has declassified intelligence reports compiled before the Iraq war which show officials thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. In one report, Iraq was thought to have both chemical and biological weapons, as well as an active nuclear programme. The extracts appear to contradict claims leaked to a newspaper that there was no evidence to back up the theory. Former intelligence officer Major Frank Soeholm Grevil has been charged with breaching the official information act. The major told reporters at the Berlingske Tidende newspaper he had sent 10 reports to the prime minister which concluded that the coalition was unlikely to find weapons of mass destruction. Pressure The two journalists who published the leaks, Jesper Larsen and Michael Bjerre, have been charged with exploiting information emerging from a crime. Before the war, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen supported the US-led invasion and told parliament that he was convinced Iraq was in possession of such weapons. Denmark sent a submarine and a warship to participate in the campaign. Since the leaks - and the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction - the prime minister has come under increasing pressure from opposition parties to declassify the reports. But Danish Defence Intelligence Service (DDIS) chief Rear Admiral Joern Olesen said: "These reports that have been made public document that Iraq, according to the entire DDIS's evaluation, probably had biological and chemical weapons just before the war." Mr Olesen said the documents were based on information gathered by the United Nations and Nato but the reports warned that "any evaluation is subject to uncertainties". Mr Fogh Rasmussen said the documents were proof that neither he nor anyone else in government had tried to mislead parliament. "The released documents remove any insistence of claims that the government could have misused, twisted or suppressed information received from the DDIS," he told reporters.
So where are the WMD's then? It looks to me like the Danes weren't lying but just vetted their intel better than we did.
the jordainians said they just busted up a plot for a large chemical attack by al queda members. where'd al queda get chemical weapons?
I remember seeing the videos of Al Qaeda testing chemical weapons on dogs, and this was prior to the Iraq war. Apparently they've been developing them for some time. This leads me to believe they were developing themselves, at least in part. If they bought the chem weapons already made, or by a country with experience in making them, those kinds of tests wouldn't be so necessary. Is this really the best proof there is that Iraq had chem weapons?
They certainly wouldn't have gotten them from Saddam. Dictators don't give away weapons, might as well step down if they do that.
These were the videos captured in Afghanistan. Anybody in the US with access to a grocery store can make chlorine gas. The instructions for many household cleaners tell you how to do it by warning you against doing it. There is a big difference between making an amount in your kitchen and a weaponized deliverable system, as the Japanese cultists demonstrated after investing one billion US dollars and managing to kill only five people. They would have been better off with propane bombs or fertilizer slurry bombs or just samurai swords.
i'll look for the link. as i recall, the weapons came from syria, so there's at least the possibility they originated in iraq. i won't speculate further until i find the original story tho.
If they originated in Syria, I doubt they came from Iraq, unless they were captured from Iraq when Syria fought against Iraq in the first gulf war.
So you think because these guys went there after the invasion that they may have just thrown the chemical weapons in their backpacks and hiked on over?
ok, i found a mention on command-post.org, quoting king abdullah. concentrate on the facts, if you don't like the source. http://www.command-post.org/gwot/index.html "Jordan’s King Abdullah revealed on Saturday that vehicles reportedly containing chemical weapons and poison gas that were part of a deadly al-Qaida bomb plot came from Syria, the country named by U.S. weapons inspector David Kay last year as a likely repository for Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. “It was a major, major operation. It would have decapitated the government,” King Abdullah told the San Francisco Chronicle. Jordanian officials estimated that the death count could have been as high as 20,000 - seven times greater than the Sept. 11 attacks. King Abdullah said that trucks containing 17.5 tons of explosives had come from Syria…" ----- "In his testimony before Congress last year, weapons inspector Kay said U.S. satellite surveillance showed substantial vehicular traffic going from Iraq to Syria just prior to the U.S. attack on March 19, 2003. While Kay said investigators couldn’t be sure the cargo contained weapons of mass destruction, one of his top advisers described the evidence as “unquestionable.” “People below the Saddam-Hussein-and-his-sons level saw what was coming and decided the best thing to do was to destroy and disperse,” said James Clapper in comments reported by the New York Times on Oct. 29. Clapper heads the National Imagery and Mapping Agency." -- By Saturday morning European news services were quoting an unnamed Jordanian official, who revealed that the al-Qaida plotters planned to use weapons of mass destruction in the foiled attack. “We found primary materials to make a chemical bomb which, if it had exploded, would have made nearly 20,000 deaths … in an area of one square kilometre,” the official told Agence France-Press. Another operation planned by the network was to use “deadly gas against the US embassy and the prime minister’s office in Amman,” he added. A car belonging to the al-Qaida plotters, containing a chemical bomb and poisonous gas, was intercepted just 75 miles from the Syrian border.
Well that's interesting but there's nothing there's nothing that proves that any of those chemicals came from Iraq. As for the evidence being unquestionable weren't those vans for making bio weapons unquestionable? This seems like every other justification for the war, more phantom than menace.
a week later, CNN finally has the story on their front page. odd that the story never asks where the chemicals came from. http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/04/26/jordan.terror/index.html -- Jordan says major al Qaeda plot disrupted Authorities: Chemical cloud would have been released in Amman Monday, April 26, 2004 Posted: 3:54 PM EDT (1954 GMT) Jordanian officials seized tons of chemicals in what they say was an Al Qaeda chemical attack plot. Aman, Jordan (CNN) -- Jordanian authorities said Monday they have broken up an alleged al Qaeda plot that would have unleashed a deadly cloud of chemicals in the heart of Jordan's capital, Amman. The plot would have been more deadly than anything al Qaeda has done before, including the September 11 attacks, according to the Jordanian government. Among the alleged targets were the U.S. Embassy, the Jordanian prime minister's office and the headquarters of Jordanian intelligence. U.S. intelligence officials expressed caution about whether the chemicals captured by Jordanian authorities were intended to create a "toxic cloud" chemical weapon, but they said the large quantities involved were at a minimum intended to create "massive explosions." Officials said there is debate within the CIA and other U.S. agencies over whether the plotters were planning to kill innocent people using toxic chemicals. At issue is the presence of a large quantity of sulfuric acid among the tons of chemicals seized by Jordanian authorities. Sulfuric acid can be used as a blister agent, but it more commonly can increase the size of conventional explosions, according to U.S. officials. Nevertheless, U.S. intelligence officials called the capture of tons of chemicals that together could create several large conventional explosions "a big deal." The plot was within days of being carried out, Jordanian officials said, when security forces broke it up April 20. In a nighttime raid in Amman, Jordanian security forces moved in on the terrorist cell. After the shooting stopped, four men were dead. Jordanian authorities said. They said at least three others were arrested, including Azmi Jayyousi, the cell's suspected ringleader, whom Jordanian intelligence alleges was responsible for planning and recruiting. On a confession shown on state-run Jordanian television, Jayyousi said he took orders from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a suspected terrorist leader who has been linked to al Qaeda and whom U.S. officials have said is behind some attacks in Iraq. "I took explosives courses, poisons high level, then I pledged allegiance to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to obey him without any questioning," Jayyousi said. Jordanian authorities said Azmi Jayyousi was the suspected ringleader in an alleged al Qaeda plot. Jordanian intelligence suspects Jayyousi returned from Iraq in January after a meeting with al-Zarqawi in which they allegedly plotted to hit the three targets in Amman. In a series of raids, the Jordanians said, they seized 20 tons of chemicals and numerous explosives. Also seized were three trucks equipped with specially modified plows, apparently designed to crash through security barricades. The first alleged target was the Jordanian intelligence headquarters. The alleged blast was intended to be a big one. "According to my experience as an explosives expert, the whole of the Intelligence Department will be destroyed, and nothing of it will remain, nor anything surrounding it," Jayyousi said. Details of the alleged plot were shown Monday on Jordanian television, including graphics of how the cell apparently intended to carry out the attack. In an videotape shown on Jordanian TV, Hussein Sharif said Jayyousi recruited him as a suicide bomber. "The aim, Azmi told me, was to execute an operation to strike Jordan and the Hashemite Royal family, a war against the crusaders and infidels," Sharif said. "Azmi told me that this will be the first chemical attack that al Qaeda will execute." Jordanian authorities said the attack would have mixed a combination of 71 lethal chemicals, which they said has never been done before, including blistering agents to cause third-degree burns, nerve gas and choking agents. In a videotape shown on Jordanian TV, Hussein Sharif said he was recruited as a suicide bomber. A Jordanian government scientist said the plot had been carefully worked out, with just the right amount of explosives to spread the deadly cloud without diminishing the effects of the chemicals. The blast would not burn up the poisonous chemicals but instead produce a toxic cloud, the scientist said, possibly spreading for a mile, maybe more. The Jordanian intelligence buildings are within a mile of a large medical center, a shopping mall and a residential area. "And there is no one combination of antidote to treat nerve agent, choking agent and blistering agent," the scientist said. Al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, has been accused of plotting chemical attacks before, and authorities said it would not be his first attempt to strike Jordan. In 2000, a Jordanian court charged him in absentia with planning to blow up a hotel and attack tourist destinations. U.S. officials have said he was behind the 2002 assassination of American diplomat Lawrence Foley, who was gunned down outside his home in Amman. According to the televised confessions, $170,000 came from Zarqawi via messengers from Syria. In last week's raid, Jordanian forces seized cash, bomb-making equipment and weapons, investigators said. CNN was not allowed access to any of those arrested. But the videotaped confessions offer a rare glimpse inside an alleged terrorist operation. The Jordanian government said the videotapes were made with the full cooperation of the suspects and their attorneys.
In an semi authoritarian state like Jordan, no one has to answer. Sort of the way it works in our *ally* Pakistan when they say they have AQ #2 guy cornered, then next thing you know, they are negotiating with AQ sympathizers. Good press works wonders when you manufacture it. As has been said before, one can manufacture many deadly toxins in your kitchen. If they can't publish any information documenting what they found, it's exactly as the silly WMD claims the US government using the NY Times and 60 minutes made last year - a load of unsubstantiated rubbish.
On second thought, 80,000 is such a high number that the rational person has to be persuaded that this is hogwash. If Aum-Shinrikyo with one billion dollars and pharmaceutical grade equipment, access to commercial suppliers of chemicals and PhD's and five years can barely kill seven people, what makes anyone swallow the idea that some taxi driver is going to furtively lead some plot in a third world country where he manages to conquer the problems of particulate size, dispersion, non destructive but dispersing explosion with multiple toxins at the same time? It would be more efficient and cheaper for them to make diesel/fertilizer slurry bombs, AKA as the OK city bomb. Then use it on a chemical plant in an urban area ala Bhopal.
