FrontPage: Kerry's Convolutions on WMDs, by Hugh Hewitt

Kerry's answer (see post below) is a jungle of dependent clauses and asides, but it deserves intense focus. Put aside the obvious reference to the left's theory that Bush took out Saddam to avenge Hussein's assassination attempt on the first President Bush, as well as the reference to the "neocons," which is verbal comfort food to the anti-Semitic loons in the audience. Let's take Kerry seriously for once.

Kerry acknowledges that WMD may yet be found. This admission destroys the left's critique of the war and months of "Bush lied!" rantings from the MoveOn.org swamp. Kerry knows what everyone with a memory knows: which is that Saddam had WMD and the world agreed he had them. Perhaps they were destroyed, perhaps hidden, perhaps trucked to Syria, but he had them. Thank you, Mr. Kerry, for your only contribution to the public's understanding of the war to date.

No sooner does he admit that the entire attack on Bush's credibility is a contrived, election-year stunt, then he goes on to fumble the issue by suggesting that only WMD in artillery shells matter to us, and that artillery was the only means available to Saddam to deliver WMD.

Two points, minor and major.

The minor point is that Saddam attack [sic] the Kurds in 1988 using chemical weapons delivered from planes. Kerry's statement that "artillery was the way they had previously delivered and it was the only way they knew they could deliver" is flat wrong. It is also easy to spot, and easy for the public to understand since they remember SCUDs hitting Israel in 1991.

The major point is that WMDs alarm us not only or even primarily when they are in artillery shells but when they are in the hands of terrorists. Had Chris Matthews been interested in actually asking a question that would have obliged the senator to show some thought, he would have inquired as to how much ricin is too much, or how great a biological threat has to exist in the lab before we take action.

Kerry's answer tells us that he fails to grasp the crucial issue of this campaign: the threat to America has changed, and our response has to change with it. Sure, he gave up a huge issue by admitting that WMD may yet be found in a transparent attempt to position himself against the possibility of their discovery before November, but more important than that admission is Kerry's display of what can only be called ignorance of the threat.

MSNBC Hardball - Kerry: Bush intentionally exaggerated case

Matthews: "If there was an exaggeration of WMD, exaggeration of the danger, exaggeration implicitly of the connection to al Qaeda and 9/11, what's the motive for this, what's the 'why?' Why did Bush and Cheney and the ideolouges around take us to war? Why do you think they did it?"

Kerry: "It appears, as they peel away the weapons of mass destruction issue, and --we may yet find them, Chris. Look, I want to make it clear: Who knows if a month from now, two months from now, you find some weapons. You may. But you certainly didn't find them where they said they were, and you certainly didn't find them in the quantities that they said they were. And they weren't found, and I have talked to some soldiers who have come back who trained against the potential of artillery delivery, because artillery was the way they had previously delivered and it was the only way they knew they could deliver. Now we found nothing that is evidence of that kind of delivery, so the fact is that as you peel it away I think it comes down to this larger ideological and neocon concept of fundamental change in the region and who knows whether there are other motives with respect to Saddam Hussein, but they did it because they thought they could, and because they misjudged exactly what the reaction would be and what they could get away with."

AP - Suspected weapons building explodes

A suspected chemical weapons warehouse exploded in flames Monday moments after U.S. troops broke in to search it, killing two soldiers and wounding five. Jubilant Iraqis swarmed over the Americans' charred Humvees, waving looted machine guns, a bandolier and a helmet.

WorldNetDaily: Saddam's WMD have been found, by Kenneth R. Timmerman

In virtually every case -- chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic missiles -- the United States has found the weapons and the programs that the Iraqi dictator successfully concealed for 12 years from U.N. weapons inspectors.

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Both Duelfer and his predecessor, David Kay, reported to Congress that the evidence they had found on the ground in Iraq showed Saddam's regime was in "material violation" of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, the last of 17 resolutions that promised "serious consequences" if Iraq did not make a complete disclosure of its weapons programs and dismantle them in a verifiable manner.

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The ISG also found a previously undeclared program to build a "high-speed rail gun," a device apparently designed for testing nuclear-weapons materials. That came in addition to 500 tons of natural uranium stockpiled at Iraq's main declared nuclear site south of Baghdad, which International Atomic Energy Agency spokesman Mark Gwozdecky acknowledged to Insight had been intended for "a clandestine nuclear-weapons program."

In taking apart Iraq's clandestine procurement network, Duelfer said his investigators had discovered that "the primary source of illicit financing for this system was oil smuggling conducted through government-to-government protocols negotiated with neighboring countries [and] from kickback payments made on contracts set up through the U.N. oil-for-food program."

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In fact, as recent evidence made public by a former operations officer for the Coalition Provisional Authority's intelligence unit in Iraq shows, some of those stockpiles have been found - not all at once, and not all in nice working order -- but found all the same.

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"It seems Iraqi soldiers were obsessed with keeping ammo dumps insect-free, according to the reading of the evidence now enshrined by the conventional wisdom that 'no WMD stockpiles have been discovered.'"

CNN: Web site links al-Zarqawi to Iraq oil attacks

A Web site posted a statement Monday attributed to Osama bin Laden associate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claiming responsibility for deadly weekend suicide attacks on two oil terminals in southern Iraq.

AP - Two U.S. Soldiers Killed in Baghdad Blast

An explosion leveled part of a building as American troops searched it for suspected production of "chemical munitions," a U.S. general said. Two soldier were killed and five wounded in the blast, and a cheering mob of Iraqis looted their wrecked Humvees, taking away weapons and equipment.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt did not say what sort of chemical munitions were believed to be produced at the site.

"Chemical munitions could mean any number of things," including smoke grenades, he said. After the blast, there was no sign in the area of precautions against chemicals.

Asked about reports that the raid team included members of the Iraq Survey Group - the U.S. team searching for weapons of mass destruction in the country - Kimmitt would say only, "The inspection was by a number of coalition forces."

He said the owner and associates of the site were "suspected of supplying chemical agents" to Iraqi insurgents, but did not elaborate.

The Eagle: Former U.N. Weapons Inspector Blix Compares WMD search to witch-hunts

In some ways, the events leading up to the invasion of Iraq were similar to “the witch-hunts of past centuries,” former United Nations chief weapons inspector Hans Blix told a crowd at Texas A&M University on Friday night.

For those who believe in witches or weapons of mass destruction, he said, “the evidence does not have to be all that strong. You will take it.”

“ It seems to me that the U.S. and U.K. leadership were so convinced that there were weapons of mass destruction [in Iraq] that they couldn’t imagine they weren’t there,” Blix surmised.

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In the autumn of 2002, Blix said Friday, he still had a “gut feeling” that Saddam was hiding WMDs. But, he added, it wasn’t his job to operate on gut feelings.

Then his team began inspecting numerous Iraqi sites based on U.S. intelligence reports and found nothing.

Uh... what about this UN weapons inspector find in January 2003?

The prospect of war with Iraq rose sharply last night after United Nations weapons inspectors discovered 11 rocket warheads designed to deliver chemical weapons. They said Baghdad had failed to declare them.

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Mr Blix said there were two roads towards resolving the crisis: disarmament or the use of force.

He said that he hoped the first road was still possible but added: "We feel that Iraq must do more than they have done so far in order to make this a credible avenue."

Iraq tried to shrug off the find. "These are 122mm rockets with an empty warhead," said Gen Hussam Mohammad Amin, the head of the Iraqi national monitoring directorate, who is Iraq's main liaison with the inspectors.

"These rockets are expired . . . they were in closed wooden boxes . . . that we had forgotten about."

New York Post: 51% Still Believe Saddam Had WMD

Most Americans continue to believe Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction when the war began, a new poll yesterday showed.

The Harris Poll found that 51 percent believe Iraq had WMD, compared with 38 who don't believe the White House claim, a leading rationale for the U.S. invasion. The numbers have barely changed since February, when the last poll was conducted, despite the fact that weapons of mass destruction have yet to be uncovered.

The poll also showed that 74 percent of Americans still believe that no clear evidence of WMD has been unearthed, while 19 percent believe proof exists. Forty-three percent believe the U.S. government exaggerated the reports of WMD in Iraq to increase support for the war, while 50 percent believes the government tried to be accurate.

The poll also found by 49 percent to 36 percent Americans continue to believe that evidence showing Iraq's support for al Qaeda has been found. The poll also showed Americans concerned about a Vietnam-like "quagmire" in Iraq.

NewsMax - Lab Tests Could Link Saddam's Missing WMDs to Jordan Plot

Laboratory tests on the poison gas smuggled from Syria into Jordan by al Qaeda terrorists earlier this month could determine whether their weapons came from Iraq, intelligence expert John Loftus said Monday.

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Noted Loftus:

"Syria dopes not make VX nerve gas - only Saddam Hussein did. So it looks as if now that Israeli intelligence and British intelligence were right - that Syria did indeed get a hold of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction just before the war."

Loftus said lab tests of the al Qaeda weapons would be key to establishing a link between the WMDs found in Jordan and Saddam's missing stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.

WorldNetDaily: 'Saddam's bombmaker' not credible?

The CIA refuses to release a document claimed by critics as evidence the U.S. had reason as early as eight years ago to question the reliability of a key former witness to Iraq's alleged nuclear weapon's program, known as "Saddam's bombmaker."

CNN - Hillary Clinton: No regret on Iraq vote

"The consensus was the same, from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration," she said. "It was the same intelligence belief that our allies and friends around the world shared."

The Atlantic - Spies, Lies, and Weapons: What Went Wrong | Pollack

How could we have been so far off in our estimates of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs? A leading Iraq expert and intelligence analyst in the Clinton Administration—whose book The Threatening Storm proved deeply influential in the run-up to the war—gives a detailed account of how and why we erred

(via Neil)

BBC NEWS - Denmark reveals Iraq arms secrets

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.

CNN.com - Woodward: Tenet told Bush WMD case a 'slam dunk'

Says Bush didn't solicit Rumsfeld, Powell on going to war

About two weeks before deciding to invade Iraq, President Bush was told by CIA Director George Tenet there was a "slam dunk case" that dictator Saddam Hussein had unconventional weapons, according to a new book by Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward.

That declaration was "very important" in his decision making, according to "Plan of Attack," which is being excerpted this week in The Post.

Bush also made his decision to go to war without consulting Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld or Secretary of State Colin Powell, Woodward's book says.

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The book also reports that in the summer of 2002, $700 million was diverted from a congressional appropriation for the war in Afghanistan to develop a war plan for Iraq.

Woodward suggests the diversion may have been illegal, and that Congress was deliberately kept in the dark about what had been done.

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The book is based on interviews with 75 people involved in planning for the war, including Bush, the only source who spoke for attribution.

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As the war planning progressed, on December 21, 2002, Tenet and his top deputy, John McLaughlin, went to the White House to brief Bush and Cheney on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, Woodward reports.

The president, unimpressed by the presentation of satellite photographs and intercepts, pressed Tenet and McLaughlin, saying their information would not "convince Joe Public" and asking Tenet, "This is the best we've got?" Woodward reports.

According to Woodward, Tenet reassured the president that "it's a slam dunk case" that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

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Woodward also reports that U.S. officials were skeptical about the weapons inspections because they were receiving intelligence information indicating that chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix was not reporting everything he had uncovered and was not doing everything he said he was doing.

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Despite his reservations about the policy, Powell told the president he would support him, deciding that it would be "an unthinkable act of disloyalty" to both Bush and U.S. troops to walk away at that point, according to Woodward.

CNN.com - Europe: No deal with bin Laden

European politicians have ruled out negotiating with Osama bin Laden after a tape the CIA says is likely to be that of the al Qaeda leader offered a truce to European nations if they pull troops out of Islamic countries.

"It is completely unthinkable that we could start negotiations with bin Laden. Everyone understands that," Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told reporters.

NewsMax. - King Abdullah: Al Qaida WMDs Came From Syria

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.

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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.

Israeli intelligence has long believed that after the U.S. delayed invasion plans to allow U.N. weapons inspectors time to search for Iraq's WMDs, Saddam moved the banned weapons to Syria, the only other country ruled by the Ba'ath Party.

On April 1, Jordanian officials announced the arrest of several terrorist suspects, saying they were still hunting for two cars filled with explosives.

Five days later, the State Department revealed that the attackers were linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-based terrorist considered to be one of al-Qaida's most dangerous. One of Zarqawi's targets was the U.S. Embassy in Amman.

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.

AP - Franks: First discussion with Bush on Iraq in December 2001

Before his speech, Franks told reporters that the invasion of Iraq seemed necessary because of the possibility that Iraq would join terrorists and attempt to use weapons of mass destruction against the United States.

"The fact is that all of us believed that we were going to see weapons of mass destruction," Franks said in a story in Thursday's editions of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. "And the intelligence that indicated all of that to us simply was incomplete. It simply was not correct."

Iraqi Nuclear Gear Found in Europe (washingtonpost.com)

UNITED NATIONS, April 14 -- Large amounts of nuclear-related equipment, some of it contaminated, and a small number of missile engines have been smuggled out of Iraq for recycling in European scrap yards, according to the head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog and other U.N. diplomats.

Mohammed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned the U.N. Security Council in a letter that U.N. satellite photos have detected "the extensive removal of equipment and, in some instances, removal of entire buildings" from sites that had been subject to U.N. monitoring before the U.S.-led war against Iraq.

ElBaradei said an IAEA investigation "indicates that large quantities of scrap, some of it contaminated, have been transferred out of Iraq, from sites monitored by the IAEA." He said that he has informed the United States about the discovery and is awaiting "clarification."

After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, U.N. inspectors discovered, inventoried and destroyed most of the equipment used in Iraq's nuclear weapons program. But they left large amounts of nuclear equipment and facilities in Iraq intact and "under seal," including debris from the Osirak reactor that was bombed by Israel in 1981. That debris and the buildings are radioactively contaminated.

The U.N. nuclear agency has found no evidence yet that the exported materials are being sold to arms dealers or to countries suspected of developing nuclear weapons. But ElBaradei voiced concern that the loss of the materials could pose a proliferation threat and could complicate efforts to reach a conclusive assessment of the history of Iraq's nuclear program.

"It is not clear whether the removal of these items has been the result of looting activities in the aftermath of the recent war in Iraq, or as part of systematic efforts" to clean up contaminated nuclear sites in Iraq, ElBaradei wrote. "In any event these activities may have a significant impact on the agency's continuity of knowledge of Iraq's remaining nuclear-related capabilities and raise concern with regards to the proliferation risk associated with dual use material and equipment disappearing to unknown destinations."

Richard Grenell, a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said, "We have seen the reports and are obviously concerned, and as we told the IAEA we are looking into the matter."

ElBaradei's letter is dated April 11 and was circulated privately this week among members of the Security Council.

Evidence of the illicit import of nuclear-related material surfaced in January after a small quantity of "yellowcake" uranium oxide was discovered in a shipment of scrap metal at Rotterdam's harbor. The company that purchased the shipment, Jewometaal, detected radioactive material in the container and informed the Dutch government, according to the Associated Press. A spokesman for the company told the news agency that a Jordanian scrap dealer who sent the shipment believed the yellowcake came from Iraq.

ElBaradei did not identify the European countries where the materials were discovered. But U.N. and European officials confirmed that IAEA inspectors traveled to Jewometaal's scrap yard to run tests on the yellowcake. The search turned up missile engines and vessels used in fermentation processes that were subject to U.N. monitoring. The U.N. Monitoring Verification and Inspection Commission informed the council about the finds in a letter, according to diplomats. The IAEA, meanwhile, ordered up satellite images to assess conditions at Iraq's former nuclear weapons sites. A senior U.N. official said they discovered that two buildings at one former site had vanished and that several scrap piles contained weapons-related materials were also missing. "In Europe, stainless steel goes for $1,500 a ton," the official said. "And that is worth transporting for the purpose of recycling."

CNN.com - Tape: Al-Zarqawi claims responsibility for wave of attacks

Fugitive terrorism suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility Tuesday for a wave of attacks targeting U.S. and other coalition forces since Americans took control of Baghdad almost a year ago.

AP - Alleged al-Qaida Tape Claims Iraq Attacks, by Maggie Michael

A man claiming to be a senior al-Qaida figure that the United States believes is operating in Iraq has released a tape calling for the country's Sunni Muslims to fight Shiites and claiming responsibility for high-profile attacks there...

Scotsman.com - Saddam did have WMD plans says inspector

SADDAM Hussein had the ability to unleash biological and chemical weapons "at short notice" on foreign nations, according to a potentially explosive new report by inspectors.

The leaked document, written by Charles Duelfer, the new director of the Iraq Survey group, concludes that hard evidence does exist that Saddam had the ability to wreak terror with the weaponry.

Furthermore, there was evidence that he was plotting to expand his facilities last year, prior to the invasion of British and American troops.

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Duelfer’s report provides what he calls "new information" on Saddam’s military build-up. "Iraq did have facilities suitable for the production of biological and chemical agents needed for weapons. It had plans to improve and expand and even build new facilities," he says in the report, seen by Scotland on Sunday.

Duelfer says he has fresh evidence that long-range ballistic missiles were being tested. He also reveals evidence from a research centre in Iraq where scientists were found to have been apparently testing commercial biopesticide, which can be used as anthrax.

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In the report, which has been sent to the US Congress, Duelfer admits that the task of the ISG team is made difficult by the reluctance of former government officials to explain their role in developing weaponry.

"There is a fear former regime supporters would exact retribution," Duelfer reports. Nevertheless, the group continued to receive "intriguing" reportsabout concealed caches.

Reuters - Kay clarifies Iraq WMD conclusions in magazine report, By Tabassum Zakaria

Former U.S. weapons inspector David Kay said on Monday that he had not concluded by July 2003 that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction as reported by Vanity Fair magazine.

Kay told Reuters he was working on four hypotheses in July and did not conclude until later last year that Iraq probably did not have such weapons.

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By the time he resigned in January this year Kay said he had come to believe Iraq did not possess any large stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons when the United States invaded.

"I believe they became incapable after 1998 of really producing a coherent program," he said. "By December I clearly had told everyone that, but it's not true in July."

CNN.com - Powell: Some Iraq testimony not 'solid'

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said his pre-war testimony to the U.N. Security Council about Iraq's alleged mobile, biological weapons labs was based on information that appears not to be "solid."

Powell said Friday his testimony about Iraq and mobile biological weapons labs was based on the best intelligence available, but "now it appears not to be the case that it was that solid," Powell said.

New York Post: 'BIOCHEMICAL PLANTS' FOUND IN IRAQ HUNT

WASHINGTON - U.S. weapons hunters in Iraq have found more evidence Saddam Hussein had civilian factories able to quickly produce biological and chemical weapons, the CIA's top weapons inspector told senators yesterday.

But they still have not found any weapons.

The Age: Secret bunkers held chemical weapons, says Iraqi exile

For seven years, before he was tortured and sentenced to death, Rashid (not his real name) worked at the top of Iraq's scientific establishment. He says he regularly met Saddam Hussein and his cousin and strongman deputy prime minister Abdul Tawab Huweish. After the Gulf War he was put in charge of a taskforce code named "Al Babel" to develop stealth technology to make aircraft and missiles undetectable on radar.

Rashid, who now lives in Melbourne, also claims to have had access as a trusted insider to secret underground bunkers where chemical weapons were stored. "Saddam gave me access to everything, he was so desperate to perfect the stealth technology," he says.

Now Rashid's great fear is that Saddam loyalists still active in postwar Iraq may get to the chemicals and weapons he saw hidden away before fleeing for his life.

"If those weapons still exist, the worry is that they will be used against the Iraqi people, the US forces or even sold off to al-Qaeda. Maybe those weapons no longer exist, but I find it hard to believe they could disappear so easily," he says.

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Rashid has told The Age he knows of five secret storage bunkers around Baghdad, Basra and Tikrit, three of which he visited regularly as a top scientist and senior employee of Iraq's now defunct Atomic Energy Commission.

One, he says, was under an island in the Tigris River near Saddam University. Another was beneath the house of one of Saddam's cousins, and reached by a tunnel with a hidden entrance 800 metres away.

He described the bunkers as being built 15 metres underground, of reinforced concrete, and multi-storeyed. "Between these layers, pipes would rise up, through the building above to provide access for ventilation.

"The lethal chemicals were stored in drums and the bunkers were air-conditioned. But there were also artillery shells and 122-millimetre rockets armed with chemicals."

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Although Rashid is known to authorities in Australia, he asked that his real name not be published, to protect him and his family from Saddam loyalists still active in Iraqi communities in and outside Australia.

"It's still too dangerous for us to speak out; I don't know who to trust. There are former army officers living in Australia who were close to Saddam," he says.

FOXNews.com - New Chief Inspector Pursues Iraq WMD Leads

U.S. inspectors continue to pursue leads about concealed caches of weapons in Iraq, leads that the new head of the Iraq Survey Group says are "intriguing and credible."

Chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that his team is finding more evidence of Iraq's interest in weapons of mass destruction before the war.

Duelfer's report said that only a "tiny fraction" of the millions of Iraq documents obtained have been translated and "new information" shows Saddam Hussein's dual-use industries were able to produce biological and chemical weapons on "short notice."