The Case For War In Iraq-The Evidence And The Moscow Connection
By Mike Minton (02/22/06)
This story is really a combination of two blockbuster stories: the first is that there is irrefutable evidence that Iraq did indeed have weapons of mass destruction; the second is that Russia was a very integral part of the cover up and disposal of the WMD.
In a story which has gotten little to no attention in the MSM, Newsmax.com puts the final nail in the coffin of those who have been crying that President Bush lied the United States into war in Iraq. In their story, which can be read here: http://newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/2/18/233023.shtml?s=lh&s=br, former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense John A. Shaw, whose job it was to track Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs, says that Saddam’s WMD’s, which were bought from Russia, were moved to Syria and Lebanon. Shaw was speaking at an Intelligence Summit in Alexandria VA.
In his speech, Shaw said that Russian special forces units, called Spetsnaz, were sent to Iraq, in plainclothes, specifically for the purpose of moving the WMD‘s, and to discard of any evidence that the weaponry was ever there. Shaw called the relocation of Saddam’s WMD stockpiles, "a well-orchestrated campaign using two neighboring client states with which the Russian leadership had a long time security relationship."
Mr. Shaw was originally charged with the task of making an inventory of Saddam’s conventional weapons, but as time went on, the Newsmax article states, “he also got ‘a flow of information from British contacts on the ground at the Syrian border and from London’ via non-U.S. government contacts. ‘The intelligence included multiple sightings of truck convoys, convoys going north to the Syrian border and returning empty,’ he said.”
Shaw was getting assistance from former British ambassador Julian Walker, as well as from “an unnamed Ukranian-American who was directly plugged in to the head of Ukraine's intelligence service.”
The article says that Shaw pointed out that the Ukrainians, out of a feeling of gratitude for America’s aid in securing Ukraine’s independence from the former Soviet Union, “were eager to provide the United States with documents from their own archives on Soviet arms transfers to Iraq and on ongoing Russian assistance to Saddam.” Shaw also said that his contacts gave him “information about steel drums with painted warnings that had been moved to a cellar of a hospital in Beirut."
The Ukrainian contact with whom Shaw was working is a credible source for information. The Ukrainian-American contact was a friend of the Western ambassador in Kiev, David Nichols, and also was a friend of Igor Smeshko, who was the head of Ukrainian intelligence.
Smeshko, who was a military attaché in D.C. in the early 1990’s when Ukraine first became independent, told then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, “…that when Ukraine became free of Russia he wanted to show his friendship for the United States," and that helping provide information on Iraq would give him that opportunity.
Shaw, who was a personal friend of the head of the British intelligence agency MI6, held a meeting with an MI6 contingent, contacts of Igor Smeshko, and James Clapper, who at that time was head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). According to the Newsmax article, this is what Shaw learned:
“-In December 2002, former Russian intelligence chief Yevgeni Primakov, a KGB general with long-standing ties to Saddam, came to Iraq and stayed until just before the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.
-Primakov supervised the execution of long-standing secret agreements, signed between Iraqi intelligence and the Russian GRU (military intelligence), that provided for clean-up operations to be conducted by Russian and Iraqi military personnel to remove WMDs, production materials and technical documentation from Iraq, so the regime could announce that Iraq was "WMD free."
-Shaw said that this type GRU operation, known as "Sarandar," or "emergency exit," has long been familiar to U.S. intelligence officials from Soviet-bloc defectors as standard GRU practice.
-In addition to the truck convoys, which carried Iraqi WMD to Syria and Lebanon in February and March 2003 "two Russian ships set sail from the (Iraqi) port of Umm Qasr headed for the Indian Ocean," where Shaw believes they "deep-sixed" additional stockpiles of Iraqi WMD from flooded bunkers in southern Iraq that were later discovered by U.S. military intelligence personnel.
-The Russian "clean-up" operation was entrusted to a combination of GRU and Spetsnaz troops and Russian military and civilian personnel in Iraq "under the command of two experienced ex-Soviet generals, Colonel-General Vladislav Achatov and Colonel-General Igor Maltsev, both retired and posing as civilian commercial consultants."
-Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz reported on Oct. 30, 2004, that Achatov and Maltsev had been photographed receiving medals from Iraqi Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed in a Baghdad building bombed by U.S. cruise missiles during the first U.S. air raids in early March 2003.
-Shaw says he leaked the information about the two Russian generals and the clean-up operation to Gertz in October 2004 in an effort to "push back" against claims by Democrats that were orchestrated with CBS News to embarrass President Bush just one week before the November 2004 presidential election. The press sprang bogus claims that 377 tons of high explosives of use to Iraq's nuclear weapons program had "gone missing" after the U.S.-led liberation of Iraq, while ignoring intelligence of the Russian-orchestrated evacuation of Iraqi WMDs.
-The two Russian generals "had visited Baghdad no fewer than 20 times in the preceding five to six years," Shaw revealed. U.S. intelligence knew "the identity and strength of the various Spetsnaz units, their dates of entry and exit in Iraq, and the fact that the effort (to clean up Iraq's WMD stockpiles) with a planning conference in Baku from which they flew to Baghdad."
-The Baku conference, chaired by Russian Minister of Emergency Situations Sergei Shoigu, "laid out the plans for the Sarandar clean-up effort so that Shoigu could leave after the keynote speech for Baghdad to orchestrate the planning for the disposal of the WMD."
-Subsequent intelligence reports showed that Russian Spetsnaz operatives "were now changing to civilian clothes from military/GRU garb," Shaw said. "The Russian denial of my revelations in late October 2004 included the statement that "only Russian civilians remained in Baghdad." That was the "only true statement" the Russians made, Shaw ironized.”
Shaw said that the Russian intelligence agency GRU controlled the entire evacuation of Saddam’s WMD to Syria and Lebanon, and that the evacuation “was the brainchild of General Yevgenuy Primakov."
Shaw claimed that eradicating any traces of Russian involvement in the WMD program was the eventual goal of the weapons evacuation, and that the operation "was a masterpiece of military camouflage and deception."
One aspect of this story is very troubling. According to Shaw, the Bush administration went to great lengths to try and stifle Shaw’s discovery of Russian involvement in Saddam’s WMD program. Shaw claims that Defense Department spokesman Laurence DiRita tried to smear him, and to cover up the evidence of Russian involvement which Shaw had uncovered.
The Newsmax article quotes Shaw as saying, “Larry DiRita made sure that this story would never grow legs…he whispered sotto voce [quietly] to journalists that there was no substance to my information and that it was the product of an unbalanced mind."
Shaw suggested that the reason the Bush administration was dismissing Russia’s involvement in the WMD program "could be much bigger than anyone has thought," but he did not elaborate on that statement.
However, a less sinister motive for the Bush administration’s hesitancy to acknowledge Russia’s involvement in Saddam’s WMD program was offered by retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney. He speculated that the reason was Iran. McInerney told Newsmax, "With Iran moving faster than anyone thought in its nuclear programs…the administration needed the Russians, the Chinese and the French, and was not interested in information that would make them look bad."
McInerney strongly agreed with Shaw’s claim that Saddam did indeed have weapons of mass destruction, however. Said he, "Jack Shaw showed when it left Iraq, and how."
Former Undersecretary of Defense Richard Perle, in a keynote speech at the Intelligence Summit, asserted that there are millions of documents which were seized in Iraq that remain untranslated. He said, "I think the intelligence community does not want them to be exploited."
Of the documents presented at the summit by FBI translator Bill Tierney were conversations in which Saddam was discussing ongoing nuclear plans with top aids in 2000--long after inspectors from the United Nations believed Saddam had abandoned all work on nuclear weapons.
Newsmax quotes Tierney as saying, “What was most disturbing in those tapes…was the fact that the individuals briefing Saddam were totally unknown to the U.N. Special Commission."
So, we now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the president was very justified in his decision to go to war with Iraq. With just the fraction of tapes and documents that have been translated, there is an overwhelming amount of evidence vindicating the president’s decision.
However, there are a couple of VERY SERIOUS questions which now need to be answered. Firstly, where are the weapons now? Are they now in the possession of those who would use them against us? I would say that the answer has to be most definitely. Saddam obviously would have sent them to a country that would either return them to him if he were able to remain in power, or would use them against the United States if he were indeed overthrown.
The second question we need an answer to is why the Bush administration went to such great lengths to cover up the Russian involvement in Saddam’s WMD program. If it was in fact because we need Russia’s help in dealing with Iran, then that would be understandable.
However, the very fact that Russia was covertly acting to assist Saddam in obtaining and hiding weapons of mass destruction has to make one wonder how reliable and trustworthy Moscow would be in dealing with Iran to begin with.
In recent years, Russia, under President Putin, has been reversing the democratic progress which had been made since the break up of the Soviet Union, and their reliability has to be questioned.
To summarize, we now have the answer to whether or not Iraq had WMD--absolutely. However, the answer to that question has now opened up a plethora of others.
Mike Minton http://michaelaminton.com/
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