Smooth Stone

We are convinced that mobile weapons were transferred from Iraq to Syria. Why is the rest of the world resisting the facts evident in satellite footage of that weapons transfer? From What Happened to Saddam’s WMD?, via Daily Alert:

Former federal prosecutor and the head of the non-governmental International Intelligence Summit, John Loftus, has released a report on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program, based on a private study of captured Iraqi documents. As Loftus summarized, “Roughly one-quarter of Saddam’s WMD was destroyed under UN pressure during the early to mid-1990s. Saddam sold approximately another quarter of his weapons stockpile to his Arab neighbors during the mid-to-late-1990s. The Russians insisted on removing another quarter in the last few months before the war.”

“The last remaining WMD, the contents of Saddam’s nuclear weapons labs, were still inside Iraq on the day when the coalition forces arrived in 2003. His nuclear weapons equipment was hidden in enormous underwater warehouses beneath the Euphrates River. Saddam’s entire nuclear inventory was later stolen from these warehouses.”

Loftus then cites Israeli sources who claim that the Iraqi nuclear program was transferred to Deir az Zour province in Syria. Israel reportedly destroyed a Syrian nuclear installation at Deir az Zour.

For more on Satellite Images, see this.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, where are you? From Chemical Ali “Threw My Sons from a Helicopter:

Speaking from behind a curtain at the trial of 15 of Saddam Hussein’s aides accused of crimes against humanity during the brutal repression of the 1991 Shia rebellion in Iraq, a mother said: “The army detained my two sons, my brother and my niece on March 3, 1991. Nine days later, my brother and niece were released and they told me that Ali Hasan al-Majid [Saddam's cousin, Chemical Ali] had executed my two sons by throwing them out of a helicopter into the Gulf.”

Many Shias who took part in the uprising say they had expected U.S. forces to back them in the rebellion, but former president Bush instead ordered a halt at the Iraqi border, leaving the rebels at the mercy of Saddam’s elite Revolutionary Guards.

From Iraq’s Insurgency Nearly Half Saudi:

About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, a senior U.S. officer said. Fighters from Saudi Arabia are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than those of any other nationality, he said.

The situation has left the U.S. military in the awkward position of battling an enemy whose top source of foreign fighters is a key ally that at best has not been able to prevent its citizens from undertaking attacks in Iraq, and at worst shares complicity in sending extremists to commit attacks.

From The Right Fight:

Lt. Gen. Aboud Qanbar, the Iraqi commander overseeing the security plan, told the Washington Post this week that while sectarian violence is the leading problem in the country, it cannot be understood apart from al-Qaeda‘s involvement. Observing that al-Qaeda often incites the violence that draws reprisals from sectarian Shiite militias, he said: “Terrorists of al-Qaeda and the enemies of Iraq, they want to start a crisis. The objective behind this is to incite sectarian strife.” Coming just ahead of Memorial Day, it was a fitting reminder that the sacrifices of American forces in Iraq have not been in vain. Just don’t tell Congress.

From Iran Supplying Weapons to Sunni Taliban:

A shipment of Iranian-made weapons bound for the Taliban was recently captured by allied forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday. The Bush administration has charged that Iran has also been supplying lethal support to Shiite militants in Iraq. According to American intelligence officials, the support to militant groups in Iraq is so systematic that it could not be carried out without the knowledge of senior Iranian officials. “Based on our understanding of the Iranian system and the history of I.R.G.C. [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] operations, the intelligence community assesses that activity this extensive on the part of the Quds Force would not be conducted without approval from top leaders in Iran,” a senior intelligence official said this year. The Quds Force is an elite unit of the Revolutionary Guards. “We know that there are munitions that were made in Iran that are in Iraq and in Afghanistan,” General Pace said Tuesday. “And we know that the Quds Force works for the I.R.G.C.”

See also The Quds Force: Lessons Learned

See also Using the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards to Export the Revolution

From Breitbart.com:

Saddam Hussein’s former deputy was hanged before dawn Tuesday for the killings of 148 Shiites, an official with the prime minister’s office said.

Taha Yassin Ramadan, who was Saddam’s vice president when the regime was ousted four years ago, was the fourth man to be executed in the killings of 148 Shiites following a 1982 assassination attempt against the former leader in the city of Dujail.

The executions have outraged Iraqi Sunnis and caused concern among international human rights groups, which have appealed for Ramadan’s life.

Where were these phony international human rights groups when Saddam Hussein had approximately 40 of his own relatives murdered, when he unleashed a bloodbath in the Iran-Iraq war which left 150,000 to 340,000 Iraqis and 450,000 to 730,000 Iranians dead, when his documented chemical attacks by his regime caused some 30,000 Iraqi and Iranian deaths, when his chemical attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja killed approximately 5,000 people, when 1,000 Kuwaitis were killed in Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, when the bloody suppression of Kurdish and Shi’a uprisings in northern and southern Iraq killed at least 30,000 to 60,000, and where his victims of torture in Iraq were subjected to a wide range of forms of torture, including the gouging out of eyes, severe beatings and electric shocks?

Oh I know, they were berating Israel for defending herself against the constant attacks by bloodthirsty Muslims just like Saddam Hussein.

From Breitbart.com:

Saddam Hussein’s former deputy was hanged before dawn Tuesday for the killings of 148 Shiites, an official with the prime minister’s office said.

Taha Yassin Ramadan, who was Saddam’s vice president when the regime was ousted four years ago, was the fourth man to be executed in the killings of 148 Shiites following a 1982 assassination attempt against the former leader in the city of Dujail.

The executions have outraged Iraqi Sunnis and caused concern among international human rights groups, which have appealed for Ramadan’s life.

Where were these phony international human rights groups when Saddam Hussein had approximately 40 of his own relatives murdered, when he unleashed a bloodbath in the Iran-Iraq war which left 150,000 to 340,000 Iraqis and 450,000 to 730,000 Iranians dead, when his documented chemical attacks by his regime caused some 30,000 Iraqi and Iranian deaths, when his chemical attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja killed approximately 5,000 people, when 1,000 Kuwaitis were killed in Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, when the bloody suppression of Kurdish and Shi’a uprisings in northern and southern Iraq killed at least 30,000 to 60,000, and where his victims of torture in Iraq were subjected to a wide range of forms of torture, including the gouging out of eyes, severe beatings and electric shocks?

Oh I know, they were berating Israel for defending herself against the constant attacks by bloodthirsty Muslims just like Saddam Hussein.

Why wasn’t this on the front page of the NY Times? From U.S. Indicts Five Men Tied to Islamic Charity:

A federal grand jury in Kansas City has indicted the Islamic American Relief Agency, an Islamic charity, and five of its officers and associates on charges of illegally transferring money to Iraq before the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

From the Washington Post:

The Bush administration has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran’s influence across the Middle East, according to government and counterterrorism officials. For more than a year, U.S. forces in Iraq have secretly detained dozens of suspected Iranian agents. U.S. forces collected DNA samples from some of the Iranians without their knowledge, subjected others to retina scans, and fingerprinted and photographed all of them before letting them go. Officials said that about 150 Iranian intelligence officers, plus members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Command, are believed to be active inside Iraq at any given time. U.S. troops now have the authority to target any member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in Iraq, as well as officers of its intelligence services believed to be working with Iraqi militias.

The White House has authorized a widening of the list of approved operations that can be carried out against the Iranian-backed Hizbullah in Lebanon, and U.S. officials plan more aggressive moves to disrupt Tehran’s funding of the radical Palestinian group Hamas. Advocates of the new policy said that only direct and aggressive efforts can shatter Iran’s growing influence. A less confident Iran, with fewer cards, may be more willing to cut the kind of deal the Bush administration is hoping for on its nuclear program. “The Iranians respond to the international community only when they are under pressure, not when they are feeling strong,” one official said.

See also Tehran’s Influence Growing in Iraq:

Iran’s expanding influence in Iraq is built on deep cultural ties as well as personal and business relationships developed during the years that many leading Iraqi Shiite politicians spent in exile in Iran.

Hat tip to Daily Alert for the sources.

Via FrontPage: “Bush-Lied-People-Died” is the rhetorical pot of gold at the end of the left’s argumentative rainbow. But the threshold of proof is so astronomically high–a Bush defender need only show the decision was reasonable, not necessarily correct–that none of Bush’s critics has ever come close to making the case. Put yourself in Bush’s position and consider what you know in late 2002:

a) 3000 Americans are dead in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania. Also dead is the useful myth that the United States will respond to a direct attack on its soil with a terrible swift sword; the formula for waging war against the U.S. is now apparent to our enemies–just work through non-state actors and turn over a few usual-suspect corpses if the U.S. connects the dots afterwards and demands justice.

b) Saddam is in violation of United Nations Resolution #687 which ended the first Gulf War–to which the U.S. is a principal signatory and thus principal aggrieved party.

c) Saddam’s military is firing at American aircraft patrolling the No Fly Zone in Iraq and Saddam himself doling out cash rewards to the families of Palestinian terrorists who kill Israelis–and occasionally American citizens.

d) There is a sealed indictment of Osama from the Clinton Administration which reads in part, “Al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq.”

e) A personal warning was issued from Russian President Vladimir Putin that Saddam is planning terrorist strikes against the United States and an unconfirmed British intelligence report that Saddam recently sought to buy uranium from Niger.

f) The head of the CIA is telling you emphatically Saddam possesses WMDs, echoing the consensus of every other intelligence agency on the planet.

g) Saddam has been jerking around weapons inspectors, thwarting their inquiries and intermittently kicking them out for a decade–which makes little sense unless he’s hiding WMDs.

h) There is incontrovertible proof of Saddam’s willingness to use WMDs on foreign enemies and even on his own people.

i) There are reports of thousands of Iraqi children dying each month as a result of UN sanctions as well as evidence that the sanctions themselves are collapsing amid governmental and corporate corruption.

j) Finally, there is a copy of the Presidential Daily Briefing from August 6, 2001 sitting on your desk titled “Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S.” The intelligence it contains is sketchy–far sketchier than the intelligence you now possess about Saddam’s intentions–but the title haunts you. If only you’d acted preemptively in August 2001, if only you’d taken out bin Laden. . .

In short, given the information at his disposal, George Bush’s decision to oust Saddam looks altogether reasonable–though, again, not necessarily right. To argue otherwise demonstrates both ignorance and bad faith.