On Sun, 07 Dec 2003 22:09:33 -0500, Stuart Wheaton
wrote:


They weren't anywhere where they posed an immediate threat. Nobody used
one, not the fedyin, not the republican guards, they didn't have them on
the front lines to be found when we over-ran their positions, none were
released as we shelled them, no resistance fighter has had any access to
them, Uday and Qusay didn't have any.

This was on CBS News last night, with an interview by al-Dabbagh

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in541815.shtml

(CBS/AP) An Iraqi officer has identified himself as the source for a
British claim about Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass
destruction that sparked a controversy marked by the death of a
British government arms expert, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's office declined to comment on the
newspaper report, except to urge anyone with information about the
so-far elusive weapons to contact the military.

The Sunday Telegraph reports Lt. Col. al-Dabbagh identified himself as
the source for the British government's assertion that Iraq could have
deployed chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction within 45
minutes of a decision to do so. The paper gave the officer's surname
only, citing fears for his safety if he was fully identified.

“We're not prepared to comment but we urge all those involved to
provide the Iraq Survey Group with whatever information they believe
they have,” a spokeswoman for Blair's office said on customary
condition of anonymity. The ISG is the coalition body searching for
Saddam's alleged chemical or biological weapons.

The 45-minute claim was in a government dossier published in September
2002. A British Broadcasting Corp. report later accused the government
of “sexing up” the dossier to make a more convincing case for military
action. Government weapons adviser David Kelly apparently committed
suicide in July after being identified as the source for the BBC
report.

Kelly's death prompted a judicial inquiry that scrutinized the
workings of Blair's government and its use of intelligence in the
buildup to the U.S.-led war. A report from the inquiry is expected
early next year.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that al-Dabbagh was the former head of
an Iraqi air defense unit in the country's western desert. It said he
had spied for the Iraqi National Accord, a London-based exile group,
and provided reports to British intelligence from early 2002 on
Saddam's plans to deploy weapons of mass destruction.

Al-Dabbagh said cases containing chemical or biological warheads were
delivered to front-line units, including his own, in late 2002, the
paper reported. He said they were designed to be launched by hand-held
rocket-propelled grenades, and did not know what exactly the warheads
contained.

The Blair government's September dossier said that “Iraq's military
forces are able to use chemical and biological weapons, with command,
control and logistical arrangements in place. The Iraqi military are
able to deploy these weapons within 45 minutes of a decision to do
so.”

The head of the MI6 spy agency, Sir Richard Dearlove, told the inquiry
into Kelly's death that the 45-minute warning in the dossier came from
an “established and reliable source,” quoting a senior Iraqi military
officer who was in a position to know the information.

The Sunday Telegraph said al-Dabbagh believed he was the source for
that claim.

“I am the one responsible for providing this information,” he was
quoted as saying. “It is 100 percent accurate.

“Forget 45 minutes, we could have fired these within half an hour,”
al-Dabbagh added. He said the weapons were not used because most of
the Iraqi army did not want to fight for Saddam.

The newspaper said al-Dabbagh works as an adviser to the
U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council and said he has received death
threats from Saddam loyalists.

It reported that Iyad Allawi, the head of the Iraqi National Accord
and a prominent council member, confirmed that he had passed
information from al-Dabbagh on Saddam's weapons to British and
American intelligence officials in the spring and summer of 2002.



No 220-pound thug can threaten the well-being or dignity of a 110-pound
woman who has two pounds of iron to even things out. Is that evil?
Is that wrong? People who object to weapons aren't abolishing violence,
they're begging for the rule of brute force, when the biggest, strongest
animals among men were always automatically "right". Guns end that,
and social democracy is a hollow farce without an armed populace to make
it work.
- L. Neil Smith