Did Saddam have WMDs or were they Memorex? PJMedia’s WMDFiles examines the continuing conundrum of the missing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Special Pajamas Media coverage:

Exclusive video from the Intelligence Summit February 2006 here and here. (includes Richard Perle and Saddam Tapes translator Bill Tierney)
Video interview of from Director of Central Intelligence James Woolsey
Video interview of Shadow War author Richard Miniter

NEW! Roger L. Simon interviews journalist Jack Kelly about the intelligence summit, and the “prince of darkness” himself, Richard Perle, about the vast trove of documents obtained after the fall of Saddam:

Windows Media Player version.

Former military intelligence officer and Arabic expert Bill Tierney is the man who revealed the Saddam tapes, translating them somewhat differently from ABC/Nightline. In the first segment of Pajamas Medias’ coverage of the Intelligence Summit, we hear portions of Tierney’s opening speech at the Summit followed by an interview which ends in a most surprising manner.

Here’s part one:

Windows Media Player version.

And here’s part two:

Windows Media Player version.

Highly-respected former Director of Central Intelligence James Woolsey was on the original board for the Intelligence Summit in Arlington last weekend until he pulled out suddenly because of the alleged Russian Mafia ties of the Summit’s financier Michael Cherney. Roger L. Simon asks Woolsey about that and about larger WMD issues in this exclusive Pajamas Media interview:

Windows Media Player version.

Roger L. Simon interviews Richard Miniter, author of the book Shadow War:

Windows Media Player version.

REPUBLIC OF IRAQ
IRAQI INTELLIGENCE
SERVICE Secret, private and immediate

Date: 23rd of March 1997

To the respected general directors

It came to our attention that during the inspection of the directorate’s headquarter (most probably the HQ of Iraqi intelligence) by UN team (No 182) that they inquired about some of the matters related to the symbols of some directorates and their modus operandi. They were also inquiring about the activities (scope of work) of those directorates and were trying to find a link between their intelligence work and the nation’s (Iraq) activity in the military industry sector. In the purpose of preventing future (UN) teams, from establishing this link, and in case they search the service’s headquarter or regional directorates we found that it was necessary to be prepared to execute the following instructions as follows:

1- Review the archive and files and remove any letters (written communication), with the atomic agency, the office of military manufacturing or stations (offices) and directorates, related to forbidden weapons (Bids, research, studies, catalogues, tests, guest experts….etc.)

2- Removal and disposal of documents and reports related to the follow up of the special committee and investigation teams (most probably the UN) along with all letters (written communications) related to them (UN) that were sent to the different directorates.

3- Taking away of forbidden and dual purpose materials, systems and equipments along with documents, catalogues and related books from the technical sections and libraries. And ensure the purification of laboratories, storage places (warehouses) and work sites from traces of any chemical, biological or radioactive material that has been previously used or stored.

( 1 / 2 )

Secret, private and immediate REPUBLIC OF IRAQ
IRAQI INTELLIGENCE
SERVICE Secret, private and immediate

4- The operation of removal or disposal of documents, reports and equipments takes place through the review of a special committee. This committee provides the necessary approvals for destroying or relocation of those documents, reports and equipments

5- Implement a constant method in dealing with the members of the inspection teams and never answer only if through a representative of the service in charge. In case they inquire about directorates and formations outside of the (intelligence) service the answer to all questions and inquiries will be general (not precise) since the scope of work is intelligence work (meaning Iraqis are not supposed to answer precisely any question they regard as directly related to their intelligence work). When faced with an inquiry of a secret topic the person in charge should go back to his superiors to have the appropriate answer.

6- M3 should inspect the computer sites, microfilms and computers along with inspecting the disks and retrieving the memories (probably hard disks) of the computers to transfer any information related to the above (above points) while coordinating with beneficiating parties (probably the different directorates related to the above information) for fear of being targeted in the future (by UN teams inspections).

Proceed with the work of all points mentioned and inform our directorate with what has been achieved in a week’s period since the publication of this notice.

Note: After the completion of all those steps this notice should be returned to our directorate.

Signature of M M6

23rd of March 1997

2

Secret, private and immediate

Original Arabic here; commentary by Ray Robison follows:

Ray Robison thinks he may have found it in one of the Docex documents: a report by the Iraqi intelligence service that al-Quds, a Jihad organization composed of Palestinians fighting in Iraq, was planning to carry out an attack with anthrax supplied by Iraq. Robison claims it proves Saddam’s had at least small amounts of WMDs and that he would use terrorists to strike, “exactly the scenario that President Bush warned about.”

Ray Robison, a former member of the Iraq Survey Group, is all over the Saddam era Docex documents: on Iraq’s nuclear coverup, Iraq top officials admitting to chemical attack on Iran during the war between the two countries, anthrax development, Russia’s complicitness in fooling inspections, and much more.

Last Friday, Kobayashi Maru pointed to two articles by Intelligence Summit presenters, and added some interesting comments of his own.

Well, new information coming from Iraq’s own archives, most of which has yet to be translated, indicates that the full story what happened to Saddam’s WMDs may not have been revealed just yet. Stories are beginning to resurface about the potential hand Russia may have played in the removal of those materials. It’s all very mysterious as you might imagine.

Such a revelation would not only be evidence of one of the most sophisticated intelligence operations in history, but it would be incredibly detrimental to the US-Russian relationship. It would shock and massively discredit everyone who reflexively accepted the mantra that “Saddam had no WMDs.”

A week doesn’t go by without someone telling me that Saddam had no real power and posed no real threat. Of course, people who read only the NYT are more likely to believe that, but selective amnesia also helps (any talk of Saddam’s crimes is dismissed as “happening before the Gulf War”). It might help if the NYT would disseminate information already available, such as was presented at the Intelligence Summit, since Saddam Had WMD, a fact that even nineteen year-olds have noticed but appears to escape the mind of the Grey Lady. But it would also make a difference if the intelligence agencies would release some more information. As the WSJ editorial this morning explains…

So says Ryan Mauro, interviewed by Jamie Glazov at Frontpage Magazine; he talks about the Russian role in moving the weapons to Syria, General Sada, the Duelfer report and how it failed to detect Saddam’s secret plasma program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

An interesting interview with General Sada by Larry Elder at Townhall.com:

Iraq possessed WMD and they were there, and they were chemical and biological, and nuclear weapons. He have also deals with China to make it in China this time, not in Iraq, because F-16s of Israelis have destroyed the Iraqi nuclear project, therefore, he designed a new system to have the atom bomb to be done in China, and he would only pay the money, and he did for $100 million, and $5 million were paid for down payment. I know the bank, I know the branch, and I know the accountant who did it.

Back from a short vacation, Kobayashi Maru has posted parts two and three of his notes and impressions from the Intelligence Summit.

That’s the title of this editorial in Investors Business Daily, which reprises some of the recently discovered evidence.

Remember that dichotomy from Shakespeare 101? I was thinking of it often while helping make the videos on the Intelligence Summit that will shortly be appearing on the Pajamas WMDFiles site, specifically when doing my interview with Bill Tierney, the UNSCOM investigator who is at the center of the Saddam tapes controversy.

… After watching the “Nightline” report, I noted that what we learned — from Saddam’s own lips — was that the inspections weren‘t working, regardless of whether or one concludes Hussein was stockpiling biological and chemical weapons: again and again, we heard Saddam and his aides discoursing on how they were able to fool inspectors with subterfuge and misdirection.

Andrew Marcus interviews Congressman Hoekstra, chairman of the Select House Intelligence Committee, on the new intelligence information being released this weekend about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.

Windows Media Player version.

I’ve been saying Saddam Hussein moved his WMDs out of Iraq since day one. What troubles me is the story below outlines the Russians helped do it. Could it be the “See, there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Bush lied!” card the liberals have been playing is nothing more than fubar?

It has been two days since besieged intelligence expert John Loftus released controversial audio tapes of meetings between Saddam Hussein and some of Iraq’s upper- level leadership. Never mind Loftus’ reliability — the authenticity of the tapes is a matter seperate from whether or not Loftus himself should be taken seriously.

The tapes, while authentic, don’t appear to include a “smoking gun” that conclusively proves Saddam Hussein hid WMDs in the run-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom, but they do provide direct evidence that he was engaged in hiding aspects of his WMD programs from UN weapons inspectors.

Today the Intelligence Summit released transcripts from the Saddam tapes on the intelligencesummit.org website. There are some interesting revelations in the MS PowerPoint presentation they have posted.

The translation is indeed different than the one provided by ABC News. The matter of what exactly is said on those tapes will be struggled over by expert linguists and I won’t try to debate that issue.

There are a few things that that we can immediately conclude from the presentation.

We got to meet Bill Tierney after his two-hour session this morning. Interesting guy. He makes a living as a non-native Arabic translator. He encourages others to review the tapes themselves - to a point. When Roger Simon of PJ Media asked him why more material of this kind wasn’t put out there for the blogosphere to vet, he expressed concerns (backed by experience and several anecdotes) that our Arabic translation capabilities, in addition to being inadequate, have been infiltrated by (first) Iraqi agents and (later) by various Islamofascist sympathizers.

[…] The overall picture he painted was one not of a single smoking gun out of Saddam’s mouth, but of a climate in which Saddam and his deputies were supremely confident of their ability to evade - and efficacy in having evaded UN inspections… all the way up to 2002. The tapes are subject to varying interpretations because so much depends on one’s interpretation of context, the nuance of particular words and guesses as to how to fill in blanks in the conversations.

The Intelligence Summit, a “non-partisan, non-profit, educational forum”, is taking place this weekend in the Washington, D.C. environs. Another blogger, Kobayashi Maru, is there and I just spoke with him on the phone. He had some highlights from this morning’s speaker, John Tierney, who discussed the tapes of Saddam Hussein recently released to ABC, and subject of a story on Nightline.

Here are some points Tierney made this morning.

The Intelligence Summit webpage has posted the 160-page Powerpoint presentation delivered earlier today by Bill Tierney, as well as the original recording in Arabic (mp3 format.) Scroll down to the Conference Schedule section to find it.

Well, not really, but I thought the reference would get your attention because it has a certain je ne sais blogosphere quoi. What I did do is the spend the day running around Inside the Beltway with a video crew, interviewing newsmakers.

The selection below is from an email sent yesterday by a former soldier and defense analyst I’ve had the good fortune to work with on several stories in the past. These were his reflections on a recent television interview about the recently released “Saddam tapes.”

But of course they did, darling. This is ABC News we’re talking about, after all.

In the “Nightline” version of a 1996 recording, Saddam predicts that Washington, D.C. would be hit by terrorists. But he adds that Iraq would have nothing to do with the attack. … In a passage not used by “Nightline,” Tierney says Saddam declares: “Terrorism is coming . … In the future there will be terrorism with weapons of mass destruction. What if we consider this technique, with smuggling?”

Seeing ghosts

Not only are the 12 hours of tapes set to be released to the public by John Loftus tomorrow a fizzling non-event, but the media and many on the Right side of the blogosphere have taken those tapes out of context, twisting them to find hidden meaning where no meaning is to be found.

Without naming names, can I just say that it is totally out of context to read Saddam Hussein’s warnings that ‘terrorism is coming to America’ as a veiled threat. Many on the Right have been so eager to find WMDs in Iraq that they are letting wishful thinking cloud their judgement. The tapes are no ‘smoking-gun’

In fact, it appears that the tapes show a Saddam Hussein worried that the U.S. would blame any acts of terrorism on Iraq.

Tapes of Saddam and his staff prove that they were busy deceiving the UN, and AP goes with “Saddam Warned US of Terrorism.” But even that isn’t the real sin here. That Iraq was running rings around the UN is hardly news. What shouldn’t be news (but is, since every time it should be reported it’s buried) gets pushed to the last paragraphs:

The WMD tapes story that aired last night contained no smoking gun. In fact, as presented on Nightline, it was almost a nonevent. Sandwiched between Dick Cheney’s hunting accident and another feature, the story was given short shrift.

So, how are we to evaluate whether the tapes have any meaning or not?

The thing is, these tapes are almost eleven years old; they were recorded in 1995. In 1998, Operation Desert Fox conducted massive airstrikes on Iraq’s weapons facilities; those were on top of sanctions, periodic bombing raids, the no-fly zone, and innumerable other disruptions of Iraq’s infrastructure before Bush’s invasion of 2003. A lot of things, in other words, happened between these tapes and the present.

The only interesting things here, I think, are (1) Saddam’s interest in what might happen if non-state entities should get their hands on WMD, and (2) his attitude about “warning” the USA and the UK about them, back when he was still an official ally in the late 80s. But even they don’t amount to much, because the first point is pretty obvious and the second has been pretty much rendered irrelevant by subsequent events.

I just heard excerpts of the tapes. Nothing conclusive. Nothing earth shattering. Saddam was a thug who wanted WMD. We knew that. Did he have any at the time we invaded? Yes. Massive stockpiles? Probably not. Enough that he would have moved them to Syria? Unknown.

Does it matter anymore in a political sense? Not to me. Taking out Saddam was the logical next step in the War on Terror.

Secret audiotapes of Saddam Hussein discussing ways to attack America with weapons of mass destruction, or three year old Abu Ghraib photos, released through the intercession of the ACLU?

Which photos are being shown on TV: Michael Totten’s, or Abu Ghraib?

What has CNN shown, the Mohammed cartoons, or more Abu Ghraib?

Those chilling words came from a man who used chemical weapons on defenseless Kurds. The monster had a track record joking addition aside. Saddam with WMD in a post-Sep. 11 world was unacceptable. Whether he had them or not, he certainly acted like he did.

[L]et’s take a step back and put this in context. Estimates from people involved in the document exploitation project tell us the U.S. government has in its possession some 2 million “exploitable items.” Of that number, less than 3 percent—somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 items—have been fully exploited.

Rather than focus on winning the war on Iraq and on terror, Dem posturing- and deceit- have served only to provide and and comfort to the enemy and media leaks have seriously hampered our efforts to prosecute the war on those who would do us harm.

The Dems lied and Americans died.

Those are the facts, folks. The U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is comprised of members from both parties.In other words, the Dems knew about the WMD’s.

Michael Isikoff, as usual.

Let’s concede that talking about WMD’s is not the same thing as actually having them.

However, talking about WMD’s does establish a few things:

In a radio interview broadcast on February 1, however, John Loftus, a former federal prosecutor who is running this weekend’s meeting, hinted that the tapes are rather more explosive. They go way beyond 2000, he said, they consist of conversations between Saddam and top officials including his deputy Tariq Aziz and the foreign minister, and reveal the countries which Saddam said was helping him hide WMD. The tapes, said Loftus, are ‘the most sensational historical find from the Iraqi era’.

Of course, it is possible that Loftus is exaggerating wildly. It is possible that the tapes tell us little that is new. It is possible that they are not authentic after all. But it is possible that they are as explosive as he suggests.

The question remains as to what happened to the WMD. The most likely benefactor of Saddam’s forced largesse was most likely Syria or Iran. Both scary scenarios.

While this will be downplayed, it is a significant development.

I am up early - it’s 5:25AM here in LA - because I am taking a morning flight to DC today to attend the Intelligence Summit in Arlington on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Pajamas Media will be covering it on our new WMDFiles blog with videos by Andrew Marcus who worked with us before. You might even see a familiar fedora-ed face on camera. Andrew and I will also be interviewing some well known figures (political and intelligence) who are not attending the Summit but are experts in the WMD world.

The report by ABC News met the expectations set by its earlier report, which I linked earlier. While what they aired did not mention any transported WMD, the partial transcripts released by ABC certainly suggests that Iraq had intentions of deceiving inspectors and reconstituting its programs at the earliest possible moment […] The most humorous aspect of the tapes will be the Exempt Media reaction. CQ readers have already noted that some media outlets have headlined their reports by noting that Saddam warned the US of impending terrorism — as if no one here had ever conceived of the prospect. It was the primary reason for stripping Saddam of his WMD programs in the first place.

Via Peter Glover’s website Wires from the bunker, we learn of an interview between Ali Ibrahim al-Tikriti, a southern regional commander for Saddam Hussein’s Fedayeen militia in the late 1980s and a personal friend of the dictator and Ryan Mauro of Worldthreats.com.

Only two weeks ago, General Sada, formerly Sadaam’s no 2 Air Force Commander, told the New York Sun that Sadaam’s WMD was moved to Syria just six weeks before the US-led invasion. Now Ali Ibrahim confirms this and explains the underlying strategy of Saddam:

Having just watched the Nightline report on Saddam’s secret tapes and understanding that they only played about 60 seconds worth of 12 hours of tape), I have to say these recordings are hard to swallows as “secret”. They may have been unavailable for the last 10 years, but the conversations were hardly secret strategy meetings about how and where to hide weapons.

[W]e could have video of Saddam examining bunkers full of WMD, neatly labeled in English, with a huge map in the background with U.S. targets brightly circled using Saddam’s blood as ink and those on the Left not believe it.

Last Tuesday, I wrote about the (potential) forthcoming release of 12 hours of audio recordings between Saddam Hussein and his top advisers that, as the New York Sun story I quoted put it, “may provide clues to the whereabouts of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction”. According to the Sun report, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence was studying the tapes. Noted the Feb 7 story:

[…] The committee has already confirmed through the intelligence community that the recordings of Saddam’s voice are authentic, according to its chairman, Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, who would not go into detail about the nature of the conversations or their context. They were provided to his committee by a former federal prosecutor, John Loftus, who says he received them from a former American military intelligence analyst.