Reuters: NY Times Ombudsman Criticizes Paper Over Iraq

Institutional failures at The New York Times led to it being used in a "cunning campaign" by those who wanted the world to believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the paper's ombudsman said on Sunday.
Daniel Okrent, who has the title "public editor," wrote in a scathing review of the paper's coverage of the weapons issue ahead of the Iraq invasion last year that The Times had been guilty of flawed journalism.

"Some of The Times's coverage in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq was credulous; much of it was inappropriately italicized by lavish front-page display and heavy-breathing headlines," said Okrent.

The newspaper's editors on Wednesday acknowledged they had failed to challenge adequately information from Iraqi exiles who were determined to show Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and overthrow him.

The editors said they "should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more skepticism." Among other things, they said the paper had relied on "misinformation" from Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi, once considered Washington's top Iraq ally.

No chemical, biological or nuclear weapons were found in Iraq after the invasion.

Say what? So far, we have brucella and Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever, ricin, sarin, aflatoxin, mustard gas, chemical and biological weapons labs, illegal long-range missiles and parts of a nuclear weapons program, buried in a scientist's back yard. Get real, Reuters.

The Connection, by Stephen F. Hayes

This conventional wisdom--that our two most determined enemies [Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden] were not in league, now or ever--is comforting. It is also wrong.

In late February 2004, Christopher Carney made an astonishing discovery. Carney, a political science professor from Pennsylvania on leave to work at the Pentagon, was poring over a list of officers in Saddam Hussein's much-feared security force, the Fedayeen Saddam. One name stood out: Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Hikmat Shakir. The name was not spelled exactly as Carney had seen it before, but such discrepancies are common. Having studied the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda for 18 months, he immediately recognized the potential significance of his find. According to a report last week in the Wall Street Journal, Shakir appears on three different lists of Fedayeen officers.

An Iraqi of that name, Carney knew, had been present at an al Qaeda summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on January 5-8, 2000. U.S. intelligence officials believe this was a chief planning meeting for the September 11 attacks. Shakir had been nominally employed as a "greeter" by Malaysian Airlines, a job he told associates he had gotten through a contact at the Iraqi embassy. More curious, Shakir's Iraqi embassy contact controlled his schedule, telling him when to show up for work and when to take a day off.

A greeter typically meets VIPs upon arrival and accompanies them through the sometimes onerous procedures of foreign travel. Shakir was instructed to work on January 5, 2000, and on that day, he escorted one Khalid al Mihdhar from his plane to a waiting car. Rather than bid his guest farewell at that point, as a greeter typically would have, Shakir climbed into the car with al Mihdhar and accompanied him to the Kuala Lumpur condominium of Yazid Sufaat, the American-born al Qaeda terrorist who hosted the planning meeting.

The meeting lasted for three days. Khalid al Mihdhar departed Kuala Lumpur for Bangkok and eventually Los Angeles. Twenty months later, he was aboard American Airlines Flight 77 when it plunged into the Pentagon at 9:38 A.M. on September 11. So were Nawaf al Hazmi and his younger brother, Salem, both of whom were also present at the Kuala Lumpur meeting.

Six days after September 11, Shakir was captured in Doha, Qatar. He had in his possession contact information for several senior al Qaeda terrorists: Zahid Sheikh Mohammed, brother of September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; Musab Yasin, brother of Abdul Rahman Yasin, the Iraqi who helped mix the chemicals for the first World Trade Center attack and was given safe haven upon his return to Baghdad; and Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, otherwise known as Abu Hajer al Iraqi, described by one top al Qaeda detainee as Osama bin Laden's "best friend."

Despite all of this, Shakir was released. On October 21, 2001, he boarded a plane for Baghdad, via Amman, Jordan. He never made the connection. Shakir was detained by Jordanian intelligence. Immediately following his capture, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence on Shakir, the Iraqi government began exerting pressure on the Jordanians to release him. Some U.S. intelligence officials--primarily at the CIA--believed that Iraq's demand for Shakir's release was pro forma, no different from the requests governments regularly make on behalf of citizens detained by foreign nationals. But others, pointing to the flurry of phone calls and personal appeals from the Iraqi government to the Jordanians, disagreed. This panicked reaction, they say, reflected an interest in Shakir at the highest levels of Saddam Hussein's regime.

CIA officials who interviewed Shakir in Jordan reported that he was generally uncooperative. But even in refusing to talk, he provided some important information: The interrogators concluded that his evasive answers reflected counterinterrogation techniques so sophisticated
that he had probably learned them from a government intelligence service. Shakir's nationality, his contacts with the Iraqi embassy in Malaysia, the keen interest of Baghdad in his case, and now the appearance of his name on the rolls of Fedayeen officers--all this makes the Iraqi intelligence service the most likely source of his training.

...THERE WAS A TIME not long ago when the conventional wisdom skewed heavily toward a Saddam-al Qaeda collaboration. In 1998 and early 1999, the Iraq-al Qaeda connection was widely reported in the American and international media. Former intelligence officers and government officials speculated about the relationship and its dangerous implications for the world. The information in the news reports came from foreign and domestic intelligence services. It was featured in mainstream media outlets including international wire services, prominent newsweeklies, network radio and television broadcasts.

...On August 27, 1998, twenty days after al Qaeda attacked the U.S. embassies in Africa, Babel, the government newspaper run by Saddam's son Uday Hussein, published a startling editorial proclaiming bin Laden "an Arab and Islamic hero."

Five months later, the same Richard Clarke who would one day claim that there was "absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda, ever," told the Washington Post that the U.S. government was "sure" that Iraq was behind the production of the chemical weapons precursor at the al Shifa plant. "Clarke said U.S. intelligence does not know how much of the substance was produced at al Shifa or what happened to it," wrote Post reporter Vernon Loeb, in an article published January 23, 1999. "But he said that intelligence exists linking bin Laden to al Shifa's current and past operators, the Iraqi nerve gas experts, and the National Islamic Front in Sudan."

...Despite the lack of resources devoted to Iraq-al Qaeda connections, the Iraq Survey Group has obtained some interesting new information. In the spring of 1992, according to Iraqi Intelligence documents obtained by the ISG after the war, Osama bin Laden met with Iraqi Intelligence officials in Syria. A second document, this one captured by the Iraqi National Congress and authenticated by the Defense Intelligence Agency, then listed bin Laden as an Iraqi Intelligence "asset" who "is in good relationship with our section in Syria." A third Iraqi Intelligence document, this one an undated internal memo, discusses strategy for an upcoming meeting between Iraqi Intelligence, bin Laden, and a representative of the Taliban. On the agenda: "attacking American targets."

...declassifying intelligence from the 1990s might shed light on why top Clinton officials were adamant about an Iraq-al Qaeda connection in the Sudan and why the Clinton Justice Department included the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship in its 1998 indictment of Osama bin Laden. More specifically, what intelligence did Richard Clarke see that allowed him to tell the Washington Post that the U.S. government was "sure" Iraq had provided a chemical weapons precursor to the al Qaeda-linked al Shifa facility in Sudan? What would compel former secretary of defense William Cohen to tell the September 11 Commission, under oath, that an executive from the al Qaeda-linked plant "traveled to Baghdad to meet with the father of the VX [nerve gas] program"? And why did Thomas Pickering, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, tell reporters, "We see evidence that we think is quite clear on contacts between Sudan and Iraq. In fact, al Shifa officials, early in the company's history, we believe were in touch with Iraqi individuals associated with Iraq's VX program"?

...We have seen important elements of the pre-September 11 intelligence available to the Bush administration; it's time for the American public to see more of the intelligence on Iraq and al Qaeda from the 1990s, especially the reporting about the August 1998 attacks in Kenya and Tanzania and the U.S. counterstrikes two weeks later.

Until this material is declassified, there will be gaps in our knowledge. Indeed, even after the full record is made public, some uncertainties will no doubt remain.

The connection between Saddam and al Qaeda isn't one of them.

OpinionJournal - Saddam's Files: New evidence of a link between Iraq and al Qaeda

One thing we've learned about Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein is that the former dictator was a diligent record keeper. Coalition forces have found--literally--millions of documents. These papers are still being sorted, translated and absorbed, but they are already turning up new facts about Saddam's links to terrorism.

...One striking bit of new evidence is that the name Ahmed Hikmat Shakir appears on three captured rosters of officers in Saddam Fedayeen, the elite paramilitary group run by Saddam's son Uday and entrusted with doing much of the regime's dirty work. Our government sources, who have seen translations of the documents, say Shakir is listed with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.

This matters because if Shakir was an officer in the Fedayeen, it would establish a direct link between Iraq and the al Qaeda operatives who planned 9/11. Shakir was present at the January 2000 al Qaeda "summit" in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at which the 9/11 attacks were planned. The U.S. has never been sure whether he was there on behalf of the Iraqi regime or whether he was an Iraqi Islamicist who hooked up with al Qaeda on his own.

It is possible that the Ahmed Hikmat Shakir listed on the Fedayeen rosters is a different man from the Iraqi of the same name with the proven al Qaeda connections. His identity awaits confirmation by al Qaeda operatives in U.S. custody or perhaps by other captured documents. But our sources tell us there is no questioning the authenticity of the three Fedayeen rosters. The chain of control is impeccable. The documents were captured by the U.S. military and have been in U.S. hands ever since.

As others have reported, at the time of the summit Shakir was working at the Kuala Lumpur airport, having obtained the job through an Iraqi intelligence agent at the Iraqi embassy. The four-day al Qaeda meeting was attended by Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi, who were at the controls of American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon. Also on hand were Ramzi bin al Shibh, the operational planner of the 9/11 attacks, and Tawfiz al Atash, a high-ranking Osama bin Laden lieutenant and mastermind of the USS Cole bombing. Shakir left Malaysia on January 13, four days after the summit concluded.

That's not the only connection between Shakir and al Qaeda. The Iraqi next turned up in Qatar, where he was arrested on September 17, 2001, six days after the attacks in the U.S. A search of his pockets and apartment uncovered such information as the phone numbers of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers' safe houses and contacts. Also found was information pertaining to a 1995 al Qaeda plot to blow up a dozen commercial airliners over the Pacific.

After a brief detention, our friends the Qataris inexplicably released Shakir, and on October 21 he flew to Amman, Jordan. The Jordanians promptly arrested him, but under pressure from the Iraqis (and Amnesty International, which questioned his detention) and with the acquiescence of the CIA, they let him go after three months. He was last seen heading home to Baghdad.

...In his new book, "The Connection," Stephen Hayes of The Weekly Standard puts together all of the many strands of intriguing evidence that the two did do business together. There's no single "smoking gun," but there sure is a lot of smoke.
The reason to care goes beyond the prewar justification for toppling Saddam and relates directly to our current security. U.S. officials believe that American civilian Nicholas Berg was beheaded in Iraq recently by Abu Musab al-Zarkawi, who is closely linked to al Qaeda and was given high-level medical treatment and sanctuary by Saddam's government. The Baathists killing U.S. soldiers are clearly working with al Qaeda now; Saddam's files might show us how they linked up in the first place.

Ann Coulter: Tit for Tet

So far, we have found chemical and biological weapons - brucella and Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever, ricin, sarin, aflatoxin - and long-range missiles in Iraq.

CNN: Gas shell findings a concern for Iraq arms inspector

Duelfer says insurgents may use such weapons on U.S. troops

The recent discovery of two chemical artillery shells in Iraq has raised concerns among weapons inspectors that other shells may turn up in the hands of insurgents battling American troops, the head of the U.S. search team said Wednesday.

"We need to investigate whether there are more where that came from, wherever that is, and we need to make certain that they're not finding their way into anti-coalition or terrorist hands," said Charles Duelfer, head of the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group, in an interview via satellite from Baghdad.

That's a bizarre scenario for a country that the media says has neither WMDs nor terrorists.

Laboratory tests of an artillery shell used in a May roadside bomb in the Baghdad area confirmed the presence of the nerve agent sarin, and a shell found two weeks before then contained the decayed residue of mustard gas.

Before the conflict, Iraqi officials told U.N. weapons inspectors that they had destroyed the country's stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.

The Iraq Survey Group reported last fall that it had found evidence of weapons research that Iraqis had concealed from U.N. inspectors.

But Duelfer's predecessor, David Kay, predicted in January that no large stockpiles of banned weapons would be found.

Duelfer said he did not think that chemical shells would be found in the thousands. But given the number of weapons Iraq was unable to account for after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, he said it is likely that others will turn up.

Just out of curiosity, how many shells = a stockpile?

He declined to discuss whether any evidence suggested that insurgents such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi have linked up with former Iraqi weapons technicians. U.S. officials have said that al-Zarqawi has links to al Qaeda and that he has claimed responsibility for a string of attacks on U.S. troops, Iraqis and others.

Iraq used chemical weapons in its 1980-88 war with Iran and to put down a Kurdish uprising against Saddam in 1988. Baghdad admitted to the United Nations in 1990 that it had built some artillery shells to carry sarin -- prototypes that it insisted had all been destroyed during testing.

...

Duelfer said he hopes to present a full report within the next few months. He denied the search is a wild goose chase, as some critics have suggested.

"A wild goose chase is when you're looking for something that may not exist," he said. "We're looking for something that does exist, and that is the truth. You know I wasn't sent here to find weapons of mass destruction. I was sent out here to find the truth about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs."

Ok... so who IS looking for them?

New York Times: The Times and Iraq

Over the last year this newspaper has shone the bright light of hindsight on decisions that led the United States into Iraq. We have examined the failings of American and allied intelligence, especially on the issue of Iraq's weapons and possible Iraqi connections to international terrorists. We have studied the allegations of official gullibility and hype. It is past time we turned the same light on ourselves.

...The problematic articles varied in authorship and subject matter, but many shared a common feature. They depended at least in part on information from a circle of Iraqi informants, defectors and exiles bent on "regime change" in Iraq, people whose credibility has come under increasing public debate in recent weeks. (The most prominent of the anti-Saddam campaigners, Ahmad Chalabi, has been named as an occasional source in Times articles since at least 1991, and has introduced reporters to other exiles. He became a favorite of hard-liners within the Bush administration and a paid broker of information from Iraqi exiles, until his payments were cut off last week.) Complicating matters for journalists, the accounts of these exiles were often eagerly confirmed by United States officials convinced of the need to intervene in Iraq. Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for misinformation from these exile sources. So did many news organizations — in particular, this one.

...Editors at several levels who should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more skepticism were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper. Accounts of Iraqi defectors were not always weighed against their strong desire to have Saddam Hussein ousted. Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all.

On Oct. 26 and Nov. 8, 2001, for example, Page 1 articles cited Iraqi defectors who described a secret Iraqi camp where Islamic terrorists were trained and biological weapons produced. These accounts have never been independently verified.

On Dec. 20, 2001, another front-page article began, "An Iraqi defector who described himself as a civil engineer said he personally worked on renovations of secret facilities for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in underground wells, private villas and under the Saddam Hussein Hospital in Baghdad as recently as a year ago." Knight Ridder Newspapers reported last week that American officials took that defector — his name is Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri — to Iraq earlier this year to point out the sites where he claimed to have worked, and that the officials failed to find evidence of their use for weapons programs. It is still possible that chemical or biological weapons will be unearthed in Iraq, but in this case it looks as if we, along with the administration, were taken in.

...The Times reporters learned that the tubes were in fact a subject of debate among intelligence agencies. The misgivings appeared deep in an article on Page A13, under a headline that gave no inkling that we were revising our earlier view ("White House Lists Iraq Steps to Build Banned Weapons"). The Times gave voice to skeptics of the tubes on Jan. 9, when the key piece of evidence was challenged by the International Atomic Energy Agency. That challenge was reported on Page A10; it might well have belonged on Page A1.

...On April 21, 2003, as American weapons-hunters followed American troops into Iraq, another front-page article declared, "Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert." It began this way: "A scientist who claims to have worked in Iraq's chemical weapons program for more than a decade has told an American military team that Iraq destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment only days before the war began, members of the team said."

The informant also claimed that Iraq had sent unconventional weapons to Syria and had been cooperating with Al Qaeda — two claims that were then, and remain, highly controversial. But the tone of the article suggested that this Iraqi "scientist" — who in a later article described himself as an official of military intelligence — had provided the justification the Americans had been seeking for the invasion.

The Times never followed up on the veracity of this source or the attempts to verify his claims.

...We consider the story of Iraq's weapons, and of the pattern of misinformation, to be unfinished business. And we fully intend to continue aggressive reporting aimed at setting the record straight.

Of course, we have never erred on the other side, such as largely ignoring chemical weapon finds and all the evidence of existing, illegal programs. Such information belongs on A35, while articles charging that the President lied belong on A1, every day, until the election.

Washington Times: Iraqi weapons pipeline probed, by Bill Gertz

The Pentagon is investigating reports that Iraqi weapons are being sent covertly to Syria and that they are fueling anti-U.S. insurgents training there, The Washington Times has learned.

The shipments include weapons and explosives sent by vehicles that were detected during the past several months going to several training camps inside Syria, which has become a key backer of anticoalition forces in Iraq, according to defense officials familiar with reports of the shipments.

One defense official said the pipeline was uncovered as part of efforts to discover what happened to Iraq's arms programs — conventional as well as weapons of mass destruction.

"Everyone seems to have forgotten that there was the prospect of ongoing traffic in munitions ... that could then be re-imported into Iraq with quite considerable effect," the official said. "We are pursuing the extent and location of that."

The weapons are traveling by covered trucks and unmarked vans along routes that appear to have been set up before the U.S.-led military invasion of Iraq last year.

The night-time deliveries are reported to include small arms, bombs and explosives pilfered from some of the several thousand weapons depots scattered throughout Iraq. The Pentagon has identified more than 8,700 weapons dumps and is continuing to find caches almost daily, officials said.

The arms and explosives come back into Iraq with the Syrian-based insurgents and terrorists, the officials said.

...

Some defense and intelligence officials said goods related to Saddam's chemical, biological and nuclear programs were sent covertly to Syria before the war.

Several thousand foreign fighters have infiltrated from Syria into Iraq, according to military officials who disclosed the flow to The Times last month.

The 600-mile desert border between Syria and Iraq has been a key smuggling route for decades, and the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad has facilitated the foreign fighters' movement, providing travel papers and weapons in some cases.

AP: Tests Confirm Sarin Gas in Baghdad Bomb, by John Lumpkin

Comprehensive testing has confirmed the presence of the chemical weapon sarin in the remains of a roadside bomb discovered this month in Baghdad, a defense official said Tuesday.

...

Iraq's first field-test of a binary-type shell containing sarin was in 1988, U.S. defense officials have said.

Saddam's government only disclosed the testing and production after Iraqi weapons chief Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel al-Majid, Saddam's son-in-law, defected in 1995. Saddam's government never declared any sarin or shells filled with sarin remained.

Saddam's alleged stockpile of weapons of mass destruction was the Bush administration's chief stated reason for invading Iraq. U.S. weapons hunters have been unable to validate the prewar intelligence.

Some trace elements of mustard agent, an older type of chemical weapon, were detected in an artillery shell found in a Baghdad street this month, U.S. officials said previously. The shell also was believed to be from one of Saddam's old stockpiles.

Iraq Watch Update: A sarin bomb is found

On May 18, the Washington Post reported that a 155-millimeter artillery round containing the deadly nerve gas sarin was found at the side of a road by a U.S. military convey in Baghdad. The bomb detonated before it could be disabled, and two U.S. soldiers suffered minor injuries from exposure to the chemical agent. The shell was designed to release the sarin gas through a binary reaction after being fired from an artillery piece. The persons who rigged the bomb probably did not know the shell contained sarin and treated it as an explosive, which greatly reduced its potency.

Most experts believe the shell was left over from Saddam Hussein's pre-1991 weapon arsenal, which was aimed at Iran. Thus, while the discovery does not prove the existence of stockpiles of mass destruction weapons, it raises the possibility that more sarin-filled shells remain in Iraq. These weapons could be found and used by insurgents, who may take better advantage of their deadly potential in the future.

In addition to the risk from poison gas, the U.S. occupation is also having difficulty securing other Iraqi weapons. According to a recent letter from the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iraq has begun to leak nuclear-related material and equipment. On April 11, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei informed the U.N. Security Council that equipment and even entire buildings have been removed from Iraqi sites that his agency had once monitored. He wrote that "large quantities of scrap, some of it contaminated, have been transferred out of Iraq" and were showing up elsewhere. According to the Washington Post, some nuclear-related equipment and a small number of missile engines were smuggled to European scrap yards for recycling.

...

On March 30, the Special Advisor to the CIA's Iraq Survey Group (ISG), Charles Duelfer, delivered an interim report on his investigation of Iraq's weapon capabilities to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Duelfer said he was looking into the intentions of Saddam Hussein's regime: "...what Saddam ordered, what his ministers ordered, and how the plans fit together." Duelfer said Saddam's regime had plans to sanitize sensitive sites on as little as 15 minutes notice. He also said the ISG had uncovered new information about dual-use facilities that could have produced biological and chemical agents quickly, giving Iraq a "breakout" capability.

Duelfer said he did not know how long the weapons hunt would take. He described the reluctance of Iraqi weapon experts to speak freely as a central impediment to the investigation, and said that the usefulness of collected documents was limited by the linguistic capabilities of his staff to translate them.

...

In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee in January, Kay said that although Iraq violated U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 by failing to report all of its weapon activities, it is "...highly unlikely that there were large stockpiles of deployed militarized chemical and biological weapons" in Iraq before the March 2003 invasion. He estimated that U.S. inspectors had already found "...85 percent of the major elements of the Iraqi program." Still, Kay said there would always be "an unresolvable ambiguity" about Iraq's weapons, largely because of the failure to secure the country after the U.S. occupation. He also maintained that Iraq hid an active ballistic missile program and tried to restart its nuclear weapon program in 2000 and 2001.

This update has plenty of good information, including a summary of Kay's findings and a list of apprehended Iraqi weapon experts, and the programs they worked on.

CSM: Iraq sarin shell is not part of a secret cache, by Scott Ritter

Scott Ritter was a UN weapons inspector in Iraq (1991-1998) and is author of 'Frontier Justice: Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Bushwhacking of America.'

If the 155-mm shell was a "dud" fired long ago - which is highly likely - then it would not be evidence of the secret stockpile of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that the Bush administration used as justification to invade Iraq.As a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, I know that the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), the US-led unit now responsible for investigating WMD in Iraq, could quite easily determine whether this shell had been fired long ago or not. Given the trouble the administration has had in documenting its past allegations about WMD, releasing the news of last week's sarin shell without the key information about the state of the shell itself seems disingenuous.

...

What gives away whether the shell had been fired is the base-bleed charge, which unlike the rest of the shell, will show evidence of being fired (or not). Iraq declared that it had produced 170 of these base-bleed sarin artillery shells as part of a research and development program that never led to production. Ten of these shells were tested using inert fill - oil and colored water. Ten others were tested in simulated firing using the sarin precursors. And 150 of these shells, filled with sarin precursors, were live-fired at an artillery range south of Baghdad. A 10 percent dud rate among artillery shells isn't unheard of - and even greater percentages can occur. So there's a good possibility that at least 15 of these sarin artillery shells failed and lie forgotten in the Iraq desert, waiting to be picked up by any unsuspecting insurgent looking for raw material from which to construct an IED.

Given what's known about sarin shells, the US could be expected to offer a careful recital of the data with news of the shell. But facts that should have accompanied the story - the type of shell, its condition, whether it had been fired previously, and the age and viability of the sarin and precursor chemicals - were absent. And that's opened the door to irresponsible speculation that the shell was part of a live WMD stockpile. The data - available to the ISG - would put this development in proper perspective - allowing responsible discussion of the event and its possible ramifications.

Slate: The Battle for Damascus, by Lee Smith

A colleague in Cairo, Raymond Stock, notes an item from the April 23 issue of the Egyptian daily Al Ahram where Assad confessed that "weapons are being smuggled from Iraq into Syria." This is both very odd and very tantalizing. While it's unlikely that the president meant to confirm suspicions that Saddam Hussein moved his WMD supply to Syria before the war began last spring, it's equally unlikely that someone is sneaking arms past the Bedouins and their boss.

WorldNetDaily: Report: 4 arrested in Berg beheading

Four people have been arrested in connection with the beheading of American businessman Nicholas Berg, according to a senior Iraqi source.

...

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida-linked Jordanian terrorist believed to be in a video of the slaying, is not among the four in custody, the source indicated to Agence France-Presse.

...

The tape of Berg's killing, entitled, "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi slaughtering an American," showed five masked men. The CIA believes one, who read a statement and carried out the beheading, was al-Zarqawi.

...

a translator and expert in Islam and the Quran believes the Arabic message accompanying the video images is a "how-to" training tape for the murder of non-Muslims by other terrorists around the globe.

The man in the video believed to be al-Zarqawi read a statement before using a large knife to decapitate Berg. As he killed him, the men shouted, ""Allahu Akbar!" or "God is great." The terrorists then held the head out to be seen by the camera.

This statement was read by the killers on the video:

"For the mothers and wives of American soldiers, we tell you that we offered the U.S. administration to exchange this hostage with some of the detainees in Abu Ghraib [prison] and they refused.

"So we tell you that the dignity of the Muslim men and women in Abu Ghraib and others is not redeemed except by blood and souls. You will not receive anything from us but coffins after coffins ... slaughtered in this way."

The statement also included: "Nation of Islam, is there any excuse left to sit idly by? And how can free Muslims sleep soundly as they see Islam being slaughtered, honor bleeding, photographs of shame and reports of Satanic degradation of the people of Islam, men and women, in Abu Ghraib prison?"

Official: al-Qaida Seeks Chemical Strike

The top intelligence official at the Homeland Security Department, worried about an increased risk of attack in coming months, says al-Qaida wants to strike on U.S. soil with something other than a conventional explosive - perhaps with a chemical or biological weapon.

You don't say? I wonder where al-Qaida might get something like that...

Binary munitions undeclared

Iraq never declared any binary 155mm artillery shells. In fact, they never claimed any filled with sarin at all in the UNSCOM Final report (Find on "Munitions declared by Iraq as remaining"). Not declared as existing at the end of the Gulf War, not having been destroyed in the Gulf War, not having been destroyed unilaterally. The only binary munitions claimed by the Iraqis were aerial bombs and missile warheads. Not in an artillery shell.

NY Times: Sarin? What Sarin?, By WILLIAM SAFIRE

You probably missed the news because it didn't get much play, but a small, crude weapon of mass destruction may have been used by Saddam's terrorists in Iraq this week.

...

You never saw such a rush to dismiss this as not news. U.N. weapons inspectors whose reputations rest on denial of Saddam's W.M.D. pooh-poohed the report. "It doesn't strike me as a big deal," said David Kay.

"Sarin Bomb Is Likely a Leftover From the 80's" was USA Today's Page 10 brushoff; maybe the terrorists didn't know their shell was loaded with sarin. Besides, say our lionized apostles of defeat, a poison-gas bomb does not a "stockpile" make. Even the Defense Department, on the defensive, strained not to appear alarmist, saying confirmation was needed for the field tests.

...

In weeks or years to come — when the pendulum has swung, and it becomes newsworthy to show how cut-and-runners in 2004 were mistaken — logic suggests we will see a rash of articles and blockbuster books to that end.

These may well reveal the successful concealment of W.M.D., as well as prewar shipments thereof to Syria and plans for production and missile delivery, by Saddam's Special Republican Guard and fedayeen, as part of his planned guerrilla war — the grandmother of all battles. The present story line of "Saddam was stupid, fooled by his generals" would then be replaced by "Saddam was shrewder than we thought."

This will be especially true for bacteriological weapons, which are small and easier to hide. In a sovereign and free Iraq, when germ-warfare scientists are fearful of being tried as prewar criminals, their impetus will be to sing — and point to caches of anthrax and other mass killers.

Defeatism's second "no" is no connection was made between Saddam and Al Qaeda or any of its terrorist affiliates. This is asserted as revealed truth with great fervor, despite an extensive listing of communications and meetings between Iraqi officials and terrorists submitted to Congress months ago.

Most damning is the rise to terror's top rank of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who escaped Afghanistan to receive medical treatment in Baghdad. He joined Ansar al-Islam, a Qaeda offshoot whose presence in Iraq to murder Kurds at Saddam's behest was noted in this space in the weeks after 9/11. His activity in Iraq was cited by President Bush six months before our invasion. Osama's disciple Zarqawi is now thought to be the televised beheader of a captive American.

Tests Confirm Sarin in Iraqi Artillery Shell

Tests on an artillery shell that blew up in Iraq on Saturday confirm that it did contain an estimated three or four liters of the deadly nerve agent sarin, Defense Department officials told Fox News Tuesday.

...

"A little drop on your skin will kill you" in the binary form, said Ret. Air Force Col. Randall Larsen, founder of Homeland Security Associates.

...

The munition found was a binary chemical shell, meaning it featured two chambers, each containing separate chemical compounds. Upon impact with the ground after the shell is fired, the barrier between the chambers is broken, the chemicals mix and sarin is created and dispersed.

Intelligence officials stressed that the compounds did not mix effectively on Saturday. Due to the detonation, burn-off and resulting spillage, it was not clear exactly how much harmful material was inside the shell.

A 155-mm shell can hold two to five liters of sarin; three to four liters is likely the right number, intelligence officials said.

Another shell filled with mustard gas, possibly also part of an improvised explosive device (IED) was discovered on May 2, Defense Dept. officials said.

The second shell was found by passing soldiers in a median on a thoroughfare west of Baghdad. It probably was simply left there by someone, officials said, and it was unclear whether it was meant to be used as a bomb.

Testing done by the Iraqi Survey Group (search) — a U.S.-organized group of weapons inspectors who have been searching for weapons of mass destruction (search) since the ouster of Saddam Hussein — concluded that the mustard gas was "stored improperly" and was thus "ineffective."

...

New weapons caches are being found every day, experts said, including "hundreds of thousands" of rocket-propelled grenades and portable anti-aircraft weapons.

"Clearly, if we're gonna find one or two of these every so often — used as an IED or some other way — the threat is not all that high, but it does confirm suspicion that he [Saddam] did have this stuff," said Ret. U.S. Army Col. Robert Maginnis.

"It is a bazaar of weapons that are available on every marketplace throughout that country," Maginnis added. "We're doing everything we can to aggressively disarm these people, but there were so many things that were stored away by Saddam Hussein in that country ... it's a huge job that we're tackling."

Some experts were concerned that enemy fighters with access to potential weapons of mass destruction in a country full of stockpiles could mean more risk to coalition forces and Iraqis.

...

The task of military analysts in Baghdad will be to determine how old the sarin shell is. A final determination will have a significant effect on how weapons researchers and inspectors proceed.

Some experts suggested that the two shells, which were unmarked, date back to the first Persian Gulf War. The mustard gas shell may have been one of 550 projectiles that Saddam failed to account for in his weapons declaration shortly before Operation Iraqi Freedom began. Iraq also failed to account for 450 aerial bombs containing mustard gas.

...

Kurds: We Have Evidence of WMD

An Iraqi Kurdish official had no doubt similar substances will be found as the weapons hunt continues.

"We don't know where they are, but we suspect they are hidden in many locations in Iraq," Howar Ziad, the Kurdish representative to the United Nations, told Fox News on Tuesday. "It's quite possible that even the neighboring states who are against the reform of Iraq ... are helping the Saddamites in hiding."

"As we know, the Baathist regime had a track record of using" these chemicals against people in Iraq, such as the Kurds, Ziad continued. "He's [Saddam] never kept any commitment he's ever made to the international committee nor to the people" to not use such deadly materials.

Saddam's regime used sarin in mass amounts during an air attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja (search) in 1988, toward the end of the Iran-Iraq War. More than 5,000 people are believed to have died in Halabja and surrounding villages, with more than 65,000 were injured.


...

"We have evidence — we have victims of the use of those agents, and we're still waiting for WHO and the U.N. to come investigate," Ziad said.

SARIN FOUND IN IRAQ: A Blog Roundup by L.T. Smash

The US military has discovered an Iraqi artillery round loaded with the deadly nerve agent Sarin, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt has confirmed.

Lots of good links follow, with analysis.

AP: Roadside bomb containing ingredients of sarin nerve agent explodes in Iraq

A roadside bomb containing deadly sarin nerve agent exploded near a U.S. military convoy, the U.S. military said Monday. It was apparently a leftover from the Saddam era arsenal, but it was uncertain if more such weapons were in the hands of insurgents.

Two members of a military bomb squad were treated for ''minor exposure,'' but no serious injuries were reported.

The chemicals were inside an artillery shell dating to the Saddam Hussein era that had been rigged as a bomb in Baghdad, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesman in Iraq.

AP: Sarin-Filled Munitions in Iraq Worry U.S., By KATHERINE PFLEGER SHRADER

U.S. officials said Monday they are concerned that other sarin-filled munitions may still exist in Iraq - and may not be well marked - after evidence indicated a roadside shell that exploded contained the nerve agent.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the results were from a field test, which can be imperfect, and more analysis needed to be done. "We have to be careful," he told an audience in Washington Monday afternoon.

Rumsfeld said it many take some time to determine precisely what the chemical was, what its presence means in terms of risks to U.S. forces and other implications.

Meanwhile, the former top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, David Kay, said it's possible the shell was an old one overlooked when Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein said he had destroyed such weapons in the mid-1990s. Kay, in a telephone interview with The Associated Press, said he doubted the shell or the nerve agent came from a hidden stockpile, although he didn't rule out that possibility.

CNN.com - Iraqi council replaces slain leader

a U.S. convoy in Iraq found an artillery shell believed to have the makings of sarin -- a deadly nerve gas used in chemical weapons, the coalition said Monday.

A senior defense official said a preliminary field test had been completed on the shell, which will undergo further testing. Field tests sometimes yield false positives.

Kimmitt said the shell contained two chemicals which, when mixed during the flight of an artillery shell, formed the nerve agent.

He said the shell had been rigged as a makeshift bomb that resulted in a small dispersal of the agent when it exploded before an ordnance team could disarm it.

U.S. intelligence officials in Washington said the shell was discovered Saturday near the Baghdad International Airport.

"The area that was affected was very minor," Kimmitt said. "There's no need for any further decontamination. The [ordnance team] people who went up there showed some minor traces of exposure, but it was so minor the doctors already have these people released."

Kimmitt said the artillery round was of an old style that Saddam Hussein's regime had declared it no longer possessed after the Persian Gulf War.

Kimmitt said it appeared that whoever set up the roadside bomb was unaware that it contained the chemicals.

"It was a weapon we believed was stocked from the ex-regime time," Kimmitt said. "It had been thought to be an ordinary artillery shell, set up like an IED [improvised explosive device]. When it exploded, it indicated that it had some sarin in it."

The general said the Iraqi Survey Group, headed by Charles Duelfer, would determine if the shell's discovery indicated Saddam possessed chemical weapons before the U.S. invasion last year. Officials in Washington said another shell -- this one containing mustard gas -- was found 10 days ago in Iraq.

No other evidence of possible chemical weapons has been found in Iraq. The Bush administration cited weapons of mass destruction as a key reason for its invasion.

AP: CIA Says Al-Zarqawi Beheaded Berg in Iraq

Terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was the masked man who beheaded an American civilian in Iraq, U.S. intelligence officials concluded Thursday, leaving other questions unresolved about Nicholas Berg's final days and his contacts with U.S. and Iraqi authorities.

In an odd twist, it also emerged Thursday that the FBI questioned Berg in 2002 about an e-mail address traced to him that was used by an acquintance of terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui. Investigators concluded that Berg had nothing to do with Moussaoui.

Through a technical analysis, intelligence officials were able to determine "with high probability" that the speaker on a video showing Berg's beheading was al-Zarqawi, said a CIA official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The same person is shown decapitating Berg, the official said.

Three days after Berg's body was found on Saturday, an Islamic Web site released a video, titled "Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi slaughters an American infidel with his own hands."

...

Speaking to reporters outside his home in West Chester, Pa., Berg's father, Michael, said Thursday that his son was investigated by the FBI over contact he had with a terrorism suspect while he was a student at the University of Oklahoma.

A senior law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Berg volunteered information about the 2002 investigation when he was detained in Iraq. The official said that an e-mail address traced to Berg had been used by an unidentified individual with purported connections to terrorism.

The investigation showed that Berg had never met the suspect individual and had not given the e-mail address to that person. Investigators concluded that Berg's e-mail address had been spread among dozens of people with links to the university.

The suspect individual appears to have been acquainted with Moussaoui, an al-Qaida adherent now in federal custody and awaiting trial on conspiracy charges stemming from the Sept. 11 attacks, the official said.

Moussaoui attended flight school in Norman, Okla., home of the university.

...

Al-Zarqawi appears to be seeking an increasingly high-profile presence. As late as March, U.S. officials said he was not known for making public statements or taking credit for attacks. But in the past five weeks, he has released three recordings, including the beheading.

The military has increased the reward for his killing or capture to $10 million in January.

Although al-Zarqawi has terrorist ties stretching from Europe to Central Asia, he is believed to have been working out of Iraq for some time.

The Jordanian-born Palestinian is a poisons expert. He is thought to be responsible for hundreds of deaths in Iraq. Last month, al-Zarqawi was sentenced to death in absentia in Jordan for masterminding the successful 2002 plot in the murder of Laurence Foley, a diplomat and administrator of U.S. aid programs in Jordan.

Townhall: Coulter's WMD roundup

Last year papers were found in Iraqi intelligence headquarters documenting Saddam's feverish efforts to establish a working relationship with al-Qaida. In response to Iraq's generous invitation to pay all travel and hotel expenses, a top aide to Osama bin Laden visited Iraq in 1998, bearing a message from bin Laden. The meeting went so well that bin Laden's aide stayed for a week. Iraq intelligence officers sent a message back to bin Laden, the documents note, concerning "the future of our relationship."

In addition, according to Czech intelligence, a few months before the 9-11 attacks, Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi intelligence agents in Prague.

Finally, a Clinton-appointed federal judge, U.S. District Court judge Harold Baer, has made a legal finding that Iraq was behind the 9-11 attacks -- a ruling upheld by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals last October. When some judge discovers a right to gay marriage in a 200-year-old document written by John Adams, Americans are forced to treat the decision like the God-given truth. But when a federal judge issues a decision concluding that Iraq was behind the 9-11 attacks, it is a "misperception" being foisted on the nation by Fox News Channel.

Interestingly, liberals refuse to believe Czech intelligence on the Prague meeting ... because the CIA doesn't believe it. Apparently, this is the lone, singular assertion by the CIA that liberals wholeheartedly trust. The CIA also concluded that evidence of WMDs in Iraq was -- in the words of CIA director George Tenet -- a "slam dunk case." But liberals hysterically denounce that CIA conclusion as a "misperception" created by Fox News Channel.

...

David Kay's report said we hadn't found "stockpiles" of WMDs in Iraq, but we have found:

-- chemical and biological weapons systems, plans, "recipes" and equipment, all of which could have resumed production on a moment's notice with Saddam's approval;

-- reference strains of a wide variety of biological-weapons agents (found in the home of a prominent Iraqi biological warfare scientist);

-- new research on brucella and Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever, and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin;

-- a prison laboratory complex for testing biological weapons on humans;

-- long-range missiles (prohibited by United Nations resolutions) suitable for delivering WMDs;

-- documents showing Saddam tried to obtain long-range ballistic missiles from North Korea;

-- facilities for manufacturing fuel propellant useful only for prohibited Scud-variant missiles.

Frontpagemag: The Saddam - 9/11 Link Confirmed

Important new information has come from Edward Jay Epstein about Mohammed Atta’s contacts with Iraqi intelligence. The Czechs have long maintained that Atta, leader of the 9/11 hijackers in the United States, met with Ahmed al-Ani, an Iraqi intelligence official, posted to the Iraqi embassy in Prague. As Epstein now reports, Czech authorities have discovered that al-Ani’s appointment calendar shows a scheduled meeting on April 8, 2001 with a "Hamburg student."

That is exactly what the Czechs had been saying since shortly after 9/11: Atta, a long-time student at Germany’s Hamburg-Harburg Technical University, met with al-Ani on April 8, 2001. Indeed, when Atta earlier applied for a visa to visit the Czech Republic, he identified himself as a “Hamburg student.” The discovery of the notation in al-Ani’s appointment calendar about a meeting with a “Hamburg student” provides critical corroboration of the Czech claim.

Epstein also explains how Atta could have traveled to Prague at that time without the Czechs having a record of such a trip. Spanish intelligence has found evidence that two Algerians provided Atta a false passport.

CNEWS - WMD threat: PM

SADDAM'S MISSING WEAPONS IN TERRORISTS' HANDS: MARTIN
By STEPHANIE RUBEC, OTTAWA BUREAU, SUN MEDIA

Prime Minister Paul Martin says he believes Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and they've fallen into terrorists' hands. Martin said the threat of terrorism is even greater now than it was following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, because terrorists have acquired nuclear, chemical and biological weapons from the toppled Iraqi leader.

"The fact is that there is now, we know well, a proliferation of nuclear weapons, and that many weapons that Saddam Hussein had, we don't know where they are," Martin told a crowd of about 700 university researchers and business leaders in Montreal. "That means terrorists have access to all of that."

'NOT OUT OF IT YET'

The PM's comments run counter to opinions expressed by leaders in such countries as France and Germany who have accused the U.S. and Britain of fudging evidence of WMDs to justify the war against Iraq.

When asked to assess the threat level since Saddam was captured by U.S. troops, Martin said he believes it has increased.

"I believe that terrorism will be, for our generation, what the Cold War was to generations that preceded us," he said. "I don't think we're out of it yet."

Martin disagreed with former prime minister Jean Chretien, who publicly blamed poverty for terrorism and the Sept. 11 attacks. "The cause of terrorism is not poverty, it is hatred."

He said he'll lead the charge to convince countries to join forces to combat terrorism and make sure the Third World has the tools to stamp it out.

Reuters: Al Qaeda-Linked Group Beheads American in Iraq

Al Qaeda-linked militants in Iraq beheaded an American civilian and vowed more killings as revenge for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners, a film on an Islamist Web site showed Tuesday.

WorldNetDaily: Syria ready to 'defend' itself against U.S.

Ambassador talks about Hamas, Hezbollah, bio-chem weapons, Iraq, more

WND: The U.S. government has been investigating intelligence reports that Saddam Hussein transferred weapons, including possibly biological or chemical weapons, to Syria before the Iraq war. Did this transfer take place?

Mekdad: Please. We don't need his weapons. We don't want them. We are committed to what we have signed. We are party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. All Arab country are parties to the treaty. The 22 Arab countries are party. The only party that is not is Israel. We think that all efforts by the U.S. and the major players in the international community should go to the real address and deal with this issue. The nuclear weapons, chemical and biological weapons are in huge quantities in Israel, and they must go there. We don't have such weapons.

Counterpunch: Someone Knew / There Were No Weapons of Mass Destruction, By DOUG GIEBEL

Ever since the Bush Administration began publicly spinning out its catalog of reasons for invading Iraq, this writer has questioned and written about the alleged existence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. More important, however, is my growing conviction that members of the administration knew the WMD did not exist in Iraq before the invasion went forward. The following account of what one might consider "circumstantial evidence" has been described by others as an "unique" or "unusual" point of view, perhaps because the perspective was hidden in plain sight and was therefore missed by investigative journalists and others hoping to find some signed or tape recorded "smoking gun."

In discussing his book "Plan of Attack" with a television interviewer, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward emphatically stated that before the invasion of Iraq Woodward was firmly convinced the still-missing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) really existed. Woodward is equally convinced the president and members of his administration also believed Saddam Hussein had WMD and moreover was prepared to use them. During his most recent press conference, President Bush referred almost wishfully to WMD, suggesting they might still be found somewhere in Iraq. As Woodward describes in detail, George W. Bush is a man of conviction, and his strong belief in the existence of WMD may never be shaken. Of course, one way or another, WMD may still be found.

...

With convincingly-deadpan expressions, those responsible for the invasion of Iraq still face cameras and say "we were misled." What they really mean is, "You were misled." Those who stage-managed the majestic design of Operation Iraqi Freedom knew there were no WMD long before the armies crossed into Iraq. Although unspoken, this fact remains one of the most egregious lies of our young new century.

Oregon Daily Emerald - Esteemed journalist lectures on ethics

Carroll cited a study released last year that showed Americans had three main
misconceptions about Iraq: That weapons of mass destruction had been found, a connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq had been demonstrated and that the world approved of U.S intervention in Iraq. He said 80 percent of people who primarily got their news from Fox believed at least one of the misconceptions. He said the figure was more than 57 percentage points higher than people who get their news from public news broadcasting.

"How in the world could Fox have left its listeners so deeply in the dark?" Carroll asked.

CNN.com - Purported bin Laden tape offers gold for Bremer

A new audiotape message purportedly from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and posted on an Islamic Web site Thursday offers 22 pounds of gold to anyone who kills Coalition Provisional Authority head Paul Bremer or top U.S. military officers.

A reward of gold is also offered for anyone who kills U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan or Annan's envoy to Iraq, Ladkhar Brahimi.

The message denounces U.N. efforts, led by Brahimi, to organize the transfer of power from the provisional authority to an interim Iraqi government June 30, calling the United Nations "a Zionists' tool."

...

"We in the al Qaeda organization will guarantee, God willing, 10,000 grams of gold to whoever kills the occupier, Bremer, or the American chief commander or his deputy in Iraq."

The message calls the handover of power to the Iraqis an "overt trick to anesthetize the people and abort the military resistance."

Photo gallery: Mass Graves in Iraq

Limbaugh: Twenty-five million Iraqis have been liberated, 300,000 to 500,000 -- some estimates are as high as 1,000,000 bodies in mass graves, and the liberals couldn't have cared less about that, great humanitarians that they are, and yet here we've got some little pictures, and all of a sudden aaaall hell's broken loose. All it means is they oppose the war, they oppose it on "humanitarian grounds." They oppose it simply because Bush is doing it...

Larry Elder: The curious lack of curiosity about WMD

Jordan recently seized 20 tons of chemicals trucked in by confessed al Qaeda members who brought the stuff in from Syria. The chemicals included VX, Sarin and 70 others. But the media seems curiously incurious about whether one could reasonably trace this stuff back to Iraq.

...So, I interviewed terrorism expert John Loftus, who once held some of the highest security clearances in the world. Loftus, a former Army officer, served as a Justice Department prosecutor. He investigated CIA cases of Nazi war criminals for the U.S. attorney general. Author of several books, Loftus once received a Pulitzer Prize nomination.

John Loftus: There's a lot of reason to think (the source of the chemicals) might be Iraq. We captured Iraqi members of al Qaeda, who've been trained in Iraq, planned for the mission in Iraq, and now they're in Jordan with nerve gas. That's not the kind of thing you buy in a grocery store. You have to have obtained it from someplace.

Larry Elder: They couldn't have obtained it from Syria?

Loftus: Syria does have the ability to produce certain kinds of nerve gasses, but in small quantities. The large stockpiles were known to be in Iraq. The best U.S. and allied intelligence say that in the 10 weeks before the Iraq war, Saddam's Russian adviser told him to get rid of all the nerve gas. It would be useless against U.S. troops; the rubber suits were immune to it. So they shipped it across the border to Syria and Lebanon and buried it. Now, in the last few weeks, there's a controversy that Syria has been trying to get rid of this stuff.

They're selling it to al Qaeda is one supposition. We know the Sudanese government demanded that the Syrian government empty its warehouse in Khartoum where they've been hiding illegal missiles along with components of weapons of mass destruction. But there's no doubt these guys confessed on Jordanian television that they received the training for this mission in Iraq. . . . And from the description it appears this is the form of nerve gas known as VX. It's very rare, and very tough to manufacture . . . one of the most destructive chemical mass-production weapons that you can use. . . . They wanted to build three clouds, a mile across, of toxic gas. A whole witch's brew of nasty chemicals that were going to go into this poison cloud, and this would have gone over shopping malls, hospitals . . .

Elder: You said that the Russians told Saddam, "There is going to be an invasion. Get rid of your chemical and biological weapons."

Loftus: Sure. It would only bring the United Nations down on their heads if they were shown to really have weapons of mass destruction. It's not generally known, but the CIA has found 41 different material breaches where Saddam did have a weapons of mass destruction program of various types. It was completely illegal. But no one could find the stockpiles. And the liberal press seems to be focusing on that.

...Loftus: It's embarrassing to the (press). They've staked their reputations that this stuff wasn't there. And now all of a sudden we have al Qaeda agents from Iraq showing up with weapons of mass destruction.

Elder: David Kay said, in an interim report, that there was a possibility that WMD components were shipped to Syria.

Loftus: A possibility? We had a Syrian journalist who defected to Paris in January. The guy is dying of cancer, and he said, "Look, my friends in Syrian intelligence told me exactly where the stuff is buried." He named three sites in Syria, and the Israelis have confirmed the three sites.

Financial Times: N Korea offers US pledge on weapons

North Korea, probably the world's most secretive and isolated nation, has offered an olive branch to the US by promising never to sell nuclear materials to terrorists, calling for Washington's friendship and saying it does not want to suffer the fate of Iraq.

Limbaugh: Weapons Of Mass Destruction Found

Would you call killing 20,000 to 80,000 people "mass destruction"? We would all agree it is. Would you call that which kills tens of thousands of people "weapons"? Sure. Therefore, do we not agree that we have found weapons of mass destruction, VX gas, based on the Al-Qaeda plot to kill up to 80,000 people in Amman, Jordan? They planned to use weapons tracked back to Syria via Iraq, folks – and Iraq was the #1 producer of VX in the region.

This is huge news coming down the pike: ten highly trained WMD terrorists caught with two vehicles loaded with deadly mixes of weapons of mass destruction. Out of the blue, our forces assaulted a booby trapped so-called perfume factory in Baghdad. It contained a whole lot of elements that could be traced to WMDs. Where are the dot-connectors, now, hmm? Where the hell did those come from if not Saddam's regime?

Meet the Press: Amb Joe Wilson

MR. RUSSERT: George Tenet in a statement said that a Niger official did say to you there may have been discussions about a potential business dealings and maybe that could have been a suggestion of uranium.

AMB. WILSON: That's right. And, of course, as I put in the book, there was a meeting on the margins of an OAU summit between a senior Niger official and an Iraqi official who turns out to be the former minister of information, Baghdad Bob. At that meeting, uranium was not discussed. It would be a tragedy to think that we went to war over a conversation in which uranium was not discussed because the Niger official was sufficiently sophisticated to think that perhaps he might have wanted to discuss uranium at some later date.

Meet the Press: Kofi Annan

MR. RUSSERT: Are you surprised that we have not found weapons of mass destruction?

[5-10 second delay]

SEC'Y-GEN. ANNAN: Before the war, the U.N. inspectors, whom I spoke to quite often, particularly Mr. Blix and Elbaradei, the atomic agency, felt that with all their effort they hadn't come across any systems of weapons of mass destruction and that they needed a bit more time to check if there were, indeed, weapons of mass destruction. There were others who felt that the weapons were there, and they could be--one could get to them and dismantle them. But, of course, we haven't found them, and let me put it this way, I had always said we were waiting for the U.N. inspectors to give us indication whether they were there or not. And until they came to the Security Council with specific indications that there were weapons and they had worked there for many years, of course. The last time around they had only gone in for three and a half months before they were shut down. And at that point, I did not know whether there were weapons of mass destruction or not, but without the certification from them, I couldn't assume that there were weapons of mass destruction.

MR. RUSSERT: But you did say in November of 2002, "Iraq keeps saying they don't have weapons of mass destruction, which nobody believes. ...If you have no weapons of mass destruction, why you have kept the inspectors out for four years?"

SEC'Y-GEN. ANNAN: Yeah, I did say that, that they should really open the door. Then the inspectors went in, and when Blix and Elbaradei and the team started working and reporting back what they had found or not found, it was clear that was an American situation and not clear, and in fact, they felt that if they had a few months or a bit more time they may have been able to make more definitive assessment. And in fact, Blix himself said something interesting, that "I have no evidence and the lack of evidence does not mean that they don't have it or they do have it, and we need to pursue our efforts."

Hoystory.com - Amb. Joseph Wilson's book

What the...?: In his soon-to-be-released book, former ambassador Joseph Wilson reveals that Iraq may indeed have attempted to buy uranium from Niger.

It was Saddam Hussein's information minister, Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf, often referred to in the Western press as "Baghdad Bob," who approached an official of the African nation of Niger in 1999 to discuss trade -- an overture the official saw as a possible effort to buy uranium.

That's according to a new book Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador who was sent to Niger by the CIA in 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq had been trying to buy enriched "yellowcake" uranium. Wilson wrote that he did not learn the identity of the Iraqi official until this January, when he talked again with his Niger source.

Wilson has repeatedly said there was no evidence that Iraq tried to acquire uranium from Niger. Today's revelation makes that out to be a lie -- a lie Wilson knew he was making.

More comments here.