You Don't Say

A story you won't find on the CBC.
UN inspectors: Saddam shipped out WMD before war and after

The United Nations has determined that Saddam Hussein shipped weapons of mass destruction components as well as medium-range ballistic missiles before, during and after the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 2003.

The UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission briefed the Security Council on new findings that could help trace the whereabouts of Saddam's missile and WMD program.

The briefing contained satellite photographs that demonstrated the speed with which Saddam dismantled his missile and WMD sites before and during the war. Council members were shown photographs of a ballistic missile site outside Baghdad in May 2003, and then saw a satellite image of the same location in February 2004, in which facilities had disappeared.

An obvious explanation that is conveniently avoided by sophmoric critics of the Iraq war and "absence" of weapons of mass destruction. (Not that weapons and precursor materials haven't been found - more sophmoric denial there). The months long "rush to war" didn't exactly deprive him of advance warning.

And of course, Saddam Hussein's Iraq was "Mother Of All Exterminators" Again - far, far too many dots to connect for mere media consumers to digest, so it's been ignored by the press "analysts".

update - some have expressed speculation that this is the only source.The New York Times also reported on this story on the 9th.

UNITED NATIONS, June 9 - Equipment and material that could have been used to produce banned weapons and long-range missiles have been emptied from Iraqi sites since the war and shipped abroad, the head of the United Nations inspectors office told the Security Council today.

Demetrius Perricos, deputy to the former chief weapons inspector Hans Blix and now the acting executive chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, told a closed- door session of the council that many of the items bear tags placed by United Nations inspectors as suspect "dual use" ones having capabilities for creating harmless consumer products as well as unconventional weapons.

Mr. Perricos accompanied his briefing with a report showing satellite photos of a fully built-up missile site near Baghdad in May 2003 and the same site denuded in February 2004.

Posted by Kate at June 12, 2004 11:32 AM