IIRC, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, and Saudi were all coalition members. Iran was the only alternative to having them destroyed.
And then why would Syria be any different, in current context? FWIW, sending the planes to Iran was exactly the same (for Iraq) as having them be distroyed.
General Sada was on The Daily Show with J. Stewart last night and was very certain that 1) the weapons existed and 2) that they were moved to Syria. He could, of course be wrong, but he came off as being very believable.
This was all covered in another thread some time ago. He’s just another lying piece of shit with a book to sell (published by a crank publisher with a proven trackrecord of publishing and not retracting lies) and his ‘evidence’ is hearsay of the ‘I met a couple of guys who told me’ type. Weigh against that all the reports that saddam didn’t have any and the continued non-existence of the infrastructure to build them. Or did they load the factories onto trucks and planes too.
Don’t you need some specialised means of transport for moving chemical/biological agents? Your guess about evidence of a new WMD start up, no offence but is that WAG or an educated guess?
Thread in question as breathlessly brought to our attention by Clothahump.
Which speaks for itself.
Sorry if that came off wrong. He would definitely have every reason to
a) use the weapons and go down in a blaze of ‘glory’ or
b) move them to a neighbour, be it Syria or Iran
I was just trying to put the choice in context.
Define need.
It is VERY helpful to transport them in protected containers, but once placed in warheads, they are transported like any other munition (though with more security, normally).
If you HAD to move something (in reality or your own mind), you do so by what ever means are at your disposal. Sadaam wasn’t exactly known as giving a rat’s backside about his fighting men.
What was moved (or even if things WERE moved, hard ‘intel’ aside) I have no idea; but don’t take it on faith that because WE would transport things in one manner (in a ‘safe’ manner even) that others would do the same.
Cite that Saddam *sent * them, not that the pilots defected in the expectation of his rapid defeat and their return? For that matter, cite that trucks seen going to Syria were sent by Saddam rather than his kleptocrats, or that they contained weaponry rather than loot?
It’s a WAG. It could have just been his data on starting anew, I dunno. It was something, and very likely something they didn’t want us to find. But I cheerfully admit that loot is a good guess, and in fact it’s what I think was the bulk of it. It’s just that something was moved, and quite a few large trucks of somethings.
**
Marley23**- well Saddam was a complete dictator, so he certainly knew & approved.
Thanks. I hadn’t seen that.
I didn’t even realize that was in question; there are numberous articles about it (LEXIS-NEXIS search, if you are a member I would be happy to send you the search citeria), as well as books. All of the websites I can find that have any claim as such, could be very biased; but I can’t find any arguement that he didn’t send them to Iran.
I have none, I have seen none, and I haven’t agrued there were any; simply that it being ‘stupid’ doesn’t mean Sadaam didn’t do it.
Then it shouldn’t be hard to find just one of them that supports your flat assertion of fact. I do hope you can find one with a little more grounding in reality than this approach, though:
The Fight Against Ignorance demands slightly higher standards than that, friend.
And I have some, do you have a LEXIS-NEXIS account, if so I will point you in the correct direction. If you are willing to use non-news outlets as a source I can also provide them for you. I am having a hard time finding an arcived news outlet source from 1991; likely due to the fact that most of our internet news outlets didn’t exist at that time.
The comment was that the poster could not ‘believe Sadaam would do something so stupid’. MY comment was that he already had. I make NO claim that he sent ANYTHING to Syria; but the ‘he wouldn’t be so stupid’ claim does not fit the basic history.
I’ll put it to you this way. When Gen. Powell made his presentation to the UN before the war, he mentioned trucks that served as mobile labs, or as weapon delivery systems (believable, given how Iraq used Scuds in Desert Storm).
Did anyone get the numbers off those trucks? Were they seen heading into Syria? Or was it a bold-faced lie? Because before the war, that was the only mention of trucks associated with weapons that I heard. Were there other trucks? Cite?
As for the planes, cite that they were moved, albeit without clear motive
I have no idea what happened to those specific trucks (though getting ‘numbers’ would require very advantagous angles, weather and resolution; they would more likely be ‘tracked’, and that isn’t perfect)
I have no idea.
I believe the ‘trucks’ that are being discussed are of the normal shipping variety, and we don’t know what was in them. I have seen no evidence that any such convoy left, though I have heard it stated as ‘fact’. I have heard speculation as to what was in those trucks, but I don’t believe ANYONE has any facts or evidence to the contents.
EEMan, your third cite ignores the fact that Iraq did approve the return of inspectors before the war broke out. In fact, the inspectors were there before the bombing started, and were ordered out. Cite , from a source that does not think the BBC hates America for its freedom.
As for the actual topic of debate, Gen Powell made an assertion that there was a specific type of trucks associated with biological weapons. One would reasonably assume that if weapons were moved to Syria, it would in those particular trucks.
Normal cargo trucks going between Syria and Iraq is no new thing, nor is it reason to believe that WMD were moved. Especially given the lack of evidence for any WMD.
I tried to make all of the disclaimers I could about the subjectivity of the sources, since we have no archived news sources from '91. It seems to be commonly held (including by Iran) that Saddam sent the planes.
The trucks described by Powell were for development and not transport. They would not have been large enough.
We have evidence for WMD’s, just not as we expected nor in any real quantity. And again, I have no evidence (nor seen any) of the alleged convoy to Syria; but bad judgement calls by Saddam are not unheard of.
(some sites of findings involoving WMD’s and Iraq here, here, here, here, etc)
We have not found any weapon systems of any significance, but we HAVE found items consistant with WMD’s and their delivery.
A statement from Iran’s government itself that 22 planes had been “sent by Saddam Hussein’s regime”, without even official attribution of motive - just an offer of return of the planes but not pilots, as is customary in defection cases worldwide.
Simple guesswork as to motives, and it was Bob Zelnick reporting anyway.
In a commentary for the Washington Times, based upon no more factual knowledge than you or I possess. For context, the guy called the BBC “Anti-American” right up front. :dubious:
Are you ready to acknowledge that perhaps it wasn’t an order from Saddam after all? That perhaps his more-junior officers, actually being humans and not automata, just might have been able to think and act for themselves if their asses depended on it? That perhaps Iran happened to be in their flying range, and unlike the bordering coalition countries, could be flown to without serious fear of being shot down? What was actually the simplest, likeliest, most consistent with human nature, explanation for those flights?